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No. 13
Dholera Smart City:
Urban Infrastructure or Rentier Growth?
Preeti Sampat
Policy Report
© The Hindu Centre for Politics & Public Policy, 2015
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Dholera Smart City:
Urban Infrastructure or Rentier Growth?
POLICY REPORT N0. 13
ABSTRACT
his study examines the ongoing creation of the
Dholera Special Investment Region along the Delhi
Mumbai Industrial Corridor in Gujarat. It analyses
the agrarian political economy of the region in relation to the
anticipated rentier gains from the conversion of land from
agriculture to a “smart city.” Given the low level of interest by
real estate developers in the project so far, the stagnant
manufacturing investments in the country, and the continuing
resistance by local residents, the study argues that the
anticipated futures that moor the Dholera smart city are
tenuous and rife with conditions of resistance and overthrow.
It argues that the ‘rentier economy’ driving the project may not
meet the development needs of a majority of local residents,
dispossessing a large majority of peasants for whom the
agrarian economy offers a choice of critical livelihood
strategies.
The ‘land pooling’ mechanism is ill equipped to deal with issues
emerging from dissent. In contrast to official articulation of
industrial infrastructure development, local opinion
emphasises agrarian infrastructure, specifically the overdue
Narmada canal irrigation system. This contest over what is
deemed necessary infrastructure for economic growth, and
who will benefit from such infrastructure, points to the
necessity for policies oriented towards ‘development from
below.’
T
POLICY REPORT N0. 13
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
his study would not have been possible without the
support of Sagar Rabari, Persis Ginwala and the
members of Bhal Bachao Samiti. Residents of
Bavaliyari and Ambli panchayats in the Dholera area shared
their apprehensions, experiences and insights regarding the
implementation of the Dholera smart city. Officials of the
DMIC Development Corporation, the Government of
Gujarat and the GICC were generous with time and shared
their views on the process of implementation.
The study was supported by The Hindu Centre for Politics and
Public Policy and thanks are due to Vasundhara Sirnate, Vidya
Subrahmaniam, and V.S. Sambandan, for continued
encouragement and support.
T
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
1
I. Introduction
n mid-2009, residents of 22 villages in the Bhal region
of Gujarat by the Gulf of Khambhat, discovered that
their villages were now to be a township. The 920
square kilometres (sq. km.) Dholera Special Investment Region
(DSIR), officially affecting a population of 39,300 is the first
smart city (or samrat sheher
1
in local parlance) along the Delhi
Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). The DMIC itself spans
1,483 km and will officially impact 180 million people across
six States — Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat
and Maharashtra. The developable land in the region is 580 sq.
km., as 340 sq. km., of the DSIR area falls under coastal
regulation zone areas.
1
Samrat Sheher literally translates as ‘emperor city’ but with a
suggested inflection here, can imply ‘the emperor’s new city.’
I
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
The Gujarat Special Investment Region (SIR) Act, 2009, was
enacted to institute investment regions and investment areas in
the State in the wake of the DMIC, albeit not exclusively along
the corridor. The Act brings within its purview the Gujarat
Town Planning and Urban Development Act (GTPUDA),
1976, a tool for the conversion of the existing rural-agrarian
land into an urban area.
Historically used for urban expansion of existing cities, the
scope of the town planning law has now been widened to
cover 'greenfield' or new cities instituted through public private
partnerships (PPPs) between the state and global and domestic
private developers. Such partnership with private bodies is
conceived from the planning stages of the project.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
3
The development plan for Dholera SIR was developed by UK-
based global consultancy firm, Halcrow, for the Government
of Gujarat in 2010 (Datta 2015). The plan was subsequently
sanctioned and rendered operational by 2012. Global
infrastructure giant AECOM was then awarded a $30 million
five-year extendable contract in mid-2013 for full programme
management services in Dholera.
The proposed land use in the Dholera smart city project
includes residential, industrial, tourism, commercial, IT,
recreation sports and entertainment zones.
2
While Dholera
does not come under the central government's flagship
programme of 100 smart cities, the DMIC Development
Corporation has created its own criteria for "smartness" in
infrastructure and social indicators.
3
2
The ambitious plans of the DSIR in its promotional video show a
city that looks like a sci-fi set with towers, bridges, a “global business
hub,” “multi-model transport systems,” airport, seaports,
“entertainment zones,” “smart homes” with "walk to work" model
and more to the accompaniment of an eerie techno drumbeat. The
video ends with the smiling face of Prime Minister Modi, and then the
promise: “The city of Dholera will come up, this is as true a fact that
the sun will rise tomorrow...” (see Artist2win 2013).
3
Infrastructure includes the use of "instrumentation, intelligence, data
analytics and information sharing" in energy, water, transportation,
public safety and solid waste management. Social indicators emphasise
are on "education, health, inclusive development, participative
governance, and community assets" (CNBC TV-18 2015).
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
The Dholera SIR Authority is in charge of implementing the
project phase-wise over 30 years, in three development phases
of 10 years each. The Authority plans initially to develop trunk
infrastructure including roads, water, sewage and power supply
systems in an "activation zone" of 22.54 sq. km., which is the
land already under the State’s possession. A Request for
Qualification cum Proposal for “infrastructure development
with integrated communications technology” is under process,
open to global applicants.
Under the provisions of the GTPUDA or Gujarat’s town
planning law, land for the Dholera SIR is to be consolidated via
a "pooling" mechanism. Fifty per cent of the land of each
owner in the Dholera area is to be "deducted" at market price
from the owners and the rest returned to them as "developed"
plots in re-designated zones under the new plan criteria. A
betterment charge will be levied on the original owners for the
provision of new infrastructure facilities, deducted from the
compensation award for 50 per cent of the land. Each affected
family is also promised one job per family in the Dholera SIR.
The Dholera SIR Authority and other officials claim that there
is no forcible acquisition of land in Dholera as all pooling is
done with public consultation. However, as this study shows,
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
5
dissent on the ground is widespread and villagers are
mobilising against the project, and challenging it in the Gujarat
High Court. While the town planning law contains provisions
for the participation of local bodies and residents in the
determination of compensation and award, it makes no
provisions for ascertaining consent to land pooling for the
project. This lacuna can be a major challenge for the project
authorities.
This study examines the institution of Dholera smart city,
alternatively called the Dholera Special Investment Region
(DSIR) in Gujarat. I begin with an overview of the DMIC as
the Dholera smart city is being developed as part of the
corridor. I then discuss the existing agrarian political economy
of the region and the threat of dispossession voiced by
residents of the area. Next, I review the land pooling
mechanism of the GTPUDA 1976 and critique some of its
provisions relevant to the process of land consolidation. I then
discuss the anticipated rentier gains driving the institution of
the Dholera smart city; and conclude by contextualising what
I call 'the rentier economy' in the broader national policy push
towards urbanisation and infrastructure for economic growth.
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
The study was undertaken over a period of four months and
involved ethnographic and archival methods. In Delhi, I
conducted semi-structured interviews among bureaucrats,
developers and academic experts, and undertook archival
research on the DMIC, DSIR and smart city projects; in
Gujarat over two trips of two weeks each I conducted semi-
structured interviews among bureaucrats, developers,
journalists, lawyers, activists and academic experts in
Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Vadodara. I also undertook
ethnographic research involving semi-structured interviews
and participant observation in public and planning meetings in
five villages of the DSIR area: Ambli, Bavaliyari, Hebatpur,
Sodhi and Dholera. Additionally, I undertook participant
observation in public meetings in Shela village, which is part
of the influence area of the Dholera SIR, as its residents
reportedly lose some land to the project, and in Kamatalav
village. Though the latter is not part of the Dholera SIR area,
land is acquired there for a proposed airport on the Dholera
project’s outskirts (see Figures 2 and 3 below).
The household level interviews were conducted largely based
on selection through random sampling along socio-economic
(based on occupation and land ownership) and caste
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
7
parameters in the villages of Ambli and Bavaliyari panchayats.
These villages are sensitive areas of resistance fraught with
tensions over "outsider" access.
In most of these villages, bureaucrats and State representatives
attempting to conduct surveys are refused entry and sent back
by the locals resisting the Dholera SIR.
My access to the area was facilitated by members of the non-
government organisation Khedut Samaj, the State-wide land-
rights campaign Jameen Adhikar Andolan Gujarat and the Bhal
Bachao Samiti comprising residents of the Dholera project area.
Figure 2: DSIR villages in Taluka Barwala
Source: http://dholerasir.com
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
Figure 3: DSIR villages in Taluka Dhandhuka
Source: http://dholerasir.com
As I began my research, I set out to examine the dynamic
around urbanisation, real estate, land, resources and resistance
in Dholera with a preliminary hypothesis regarding the role of
real estate interests driving the institution of the new smart city.
The questions I sought to examine included the growth of a
‘real estate economy;’ the consolidation of this economy in
smart city projects; its driving forces; scale of operations;
potential rent; sources of finance; costs; and the implications
of its growth for existing and future relations to land,
resources, livelihoods and development. I was interested in the
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
9
‘uneven geographical developments’ (Harvey 1982) that
Dholera smart city obscured and the historical and global
underpinnings of real estate growth in India over the past
decade.
As I soon discovered, real estate developers are not a driving
force in the institution of Dholera, unlike in many large and
medium Special Economic Zones that courted controversy.
While real estate does play a significant role in the imaginary of
Dholera, at the moment, there is little interest or investment by
private developers, as there is "nothing" on the ground. A
reformulated dirigisme, counter to the tenets of liberalism, is
thus instituting urbanisation infrastructure in the area,
ironically to liberalise the economy for capitalist accumulation
and growth. The bottom line is anticipated
4
investment and rent
— investment that is expected to arrive once basic infrastructure
is in place; rent that is expected to accrue as land and eventually
4
In his work examining the Andhra Pradesh SEZ, Cross refers to
Special Economic Zones as "uniquely charged objects of conviction
and anxiety" (2014: 4) that are "made into particular places for capital
by planners and politicians, corporate managers and executives,
farmers, workers and activists as they pursue different futures"(ibid.: 5)
built on an "economy of anticipation" (ibid.: 6).
My aim in invoking the anticipated nature of investments in Dholera
is restricted to the tenuousness of the futures invoked by the planners
promoters of the project, in this case various state agencies and
private planners.
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
real estate prices appreciate with the 'development' of the area
into a 'smart city.'
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
11
II. The Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor
he Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) was
initiated in 2006 with an agreement between the
governments of India and Japan. Overseen by the
Industries Department of the Union Ministry of Commerce
and Industry, the DMIC maps a complex policy terrain
schematised in the relatively recent National Manufacturing
Policy (NMP) of 2011. The NMP envisages National
Investment Manufacturing Zones of 250 sq. km. (about 61,700
acres) each with integrated townships, social infrastructure and
connectivity. Under the DMIC, these “mega zones” comprise
designated investment regions and industrial areas with SEZs
and integrated industrial townships. The projects within the
investment and industrial areas are to be developed through
public private partnerships along the 1,483 km stretch between
Delhi and Mumbai, spanning six States.
In December 2006, a memorandum of understanding was
signed between the Department of Industrial Policy and
Promotion of the Union Commerce and Industry Ministry
and the Vice Minister, Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry of the Government of Japan, for “mutual
T
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
cooperation” and setting up a Delhi Mumbai Industrial
Corridor (DMIC; see GoI 2007). During Premier Shinzo Abe’s
visit to India in August 2007, a final Project Concept prepared
by the Indian company, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial
Services (hired as consultant by the Commerce and Industry
Ministry), was presented to both Prime Ministers. According
to the DMIC website:
[The] Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is a mega
infrastructure project of $90 billion with the financial &
technical aids from Japan, covering an overall length of
1,483 km between the political capital and the business
capital of India, i.e. Delhi and Mumbai.
5
The website continues:
A band of 150 km (Influence region) has been chosen
on both sides of the Freight corridor[
6
]… The vision for
DMIC is to create [a] strong economic base in this band
with [a] globally competitive environment and state-of-
the-art infrastructure to activate local commerce,
enhance foreign investments, real-estate investments and
attain sustainable development. …DMIC would also
include development of requisite feeder rail/ road
connectivity to hinterland/ markets and select ports
along the western coast.
5
Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Last accessed April 14, 2013
6
The Freight Corridor also runs almost parallel to the Delhi—
Mumbai leg of the Golden Quadrilateral National Highway instituted
by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government in 1999-
2004 between the four metropolises, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and
Kolkata.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
13
Figure 4: DMIC Project Influence Area and New Industrial Regions
Source: Concept paper for Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor
As indicated earlier, approximately 180 million people or 14
per cent of the Indian population will be affected by the
corridor’s development. The corridor incorporates nine mega
industrial zones, one high speed freight line, three ports, and
six air ports; a six-lane intersection-free expressway connecting
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
the country’s political and financial capitals and a 4,000-MW
power plant. Funds for the projects are to come from the
Indian government, Japanese loans, and investment by
Japanese firms and through Japan depository receipts issued by
the Indian companies. The website further explains:
High impact/ market driven nodes - integrated
Investment Regions (IRs) and Industrial Areas (IAs)[
7
]
have been identified within the corridor to provide
transparent and investment friendly facility regimes… 24
such nodes - 9 IRs and 15 IAs spanning across six States
have been identified after wide consultations with the
stakeholders i.e the State Governments and the
concerned Central Ministries.
According to the DMIC Chief Executive Officer, Talleen
Kumar, smart cities along the DMIC will have integrated
communications technology as one of the components for
improving life; infrastructure will operate through sensors
sharing information in real time and this will make for
efficiency. Smartness will include “hard” and “soft”
infrastructure, including in areas like flood-control, drainage,
sewage and drinking water provisions, developed with
extensive back-office work in project development. Special
Purpose Vehicles will be responsible for the implementation
7
IRs are to have a minimum area of over 200 sq. k.m., and IAs over
100 sq. km.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
15
of the projects. Planned industrial cities will address the
growth and employment needs of the country and turn India
into a manufacturing and investment destination. They will
address rural to urban migration and help pull thousands of
people above poverty line (interview with the author May 13,
2015).
The DMIC does not promise extra tax concessions to
developers (except for SEZs along the DMIC), but land and
resource provisions by the State are par for the course. As
Kumar pointed out in his interview, the contribution of land is
the equity share of States in the DMIC projects, while the
centre will dispense cash, along with private investors. Given
the scale of operations and quantum of land sought for the
DMIC projects, it is unsurprising that where operations have
begun - in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana -
the implementation of investment regions and areas are
running into growing resistance from peasants,' big farmers’
and citizens' groups
8
over land acquisition.
8
I use the term peasants’ groups here to refer to small and marginal
land-owning farmers with less than 10 and two acres of land
respectively, landless agrarian workers, pastoralists, fisher folk, forest
dwellers and other petty commodity producers. Peasants may be
further stratified along ethnicity, religion, caste and gender lines. Big
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
The Mandal-Becharaji Special Investment Region (MBSIR) in
Gujarat was one of the first “nodes” to begin implementation
along the DMIC; and faced immediate resistance from the 44
villages whose 50,884 hectares of land were sought for it (see
Indian Express 2013; Times of India 2013). When agitations
intensified, the then-Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra
Modi, likely fearing electoral repercussions in a sensitive
election year, cancelled the notification for 36 villages for the
Special Investment Region (Indian Express 2013).
The remaining eight villages are still resisting the acquisition of
their villages for the Investment Region and opposing the
institution of a Maruti Suzuki automobile plant in the region
on the pasturelands of the traditional cattle-rearing Maldhari
community.
9
The Maldharis, along with other landless
farmers here refers to farmers with more than 10 acres of land.
Citizens’ groups here refer to coalitions of individuals, concerned
professionals and representatives of non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) that coalesce around contentious issues. They are not NGOs
in themselves, and often do not take institutional funds or salaries, but
are rather concerned people working voluntarily for campaigns who
raise resources through individual donations.
9
It should be noted that Maruti Suzuki has faced repeated agitations,
strikes and confrontations from contract workers in Manesar and
Gurgaon in Haryana, and regularly threatens to shut operations and
relocate to Gujarat.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
17
communities had been reportedly given this land in 1954 under
land reforms (see Chauhan 2013; Thakkar 2013; JAAG
2014a,b). In the Dholera SIR area also, agitations have been
continuing: 100 people were detained and several arrested in
February 2014, when protesting land acquisition (see Chavda
2014; JAAG 2014a).
10
Global Genealogy of Corridor Growth
Tracing the historical global genealogy of corridor
development, it was Jean Gottman who heralded the growth
of the "megalopolis" from his observations of metropolitan
growth corridors along the U.S. northeastern seaboard in 1957,
noting "the beginning of a great revolution in the geography of
land use" and "a new era in the distribution of habitat and
economic activities" (1957: 200).
10
Similarly, land acquisition of around 75,000 acres for Dighi port in
Maharashtra State’s Raigad district was dropped by the central
government in the face of farmers’ protests and the Maharashtra
government’s inability to acquire land (Shivadekar 2013). The DMIC
presumably also forms the template for several other infrastructure
corridors, such as the Amritsar Kolkata Industrial Corridor, the
Chennai Bangalore Industrial Corridor and the larger corridor linking
all the southern corridors, called the Peninsular Region Industrial
Development (PRIDe) Corridor.
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
Gottman also pointed to the historical existence and growth of
such corridors in Europe. In 1989, a group of French
geographers under Roger Brunet identified Europe’s
“backbone,” termed the “blue banana” by the European press
(see Hospers 2003), covering urban centres like Rotterdam,
Amsterdam, Duisburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Basel,
Zurich, Milan and Genoa, including London and Brussels.
More recently, “golden” and “yellow” bananas have also been
identified in Europe. These metropolitan growth corridors
have developed from historical regional economic
developments, although efforts have been made by States to
facilitate their connections after the emergence of economic
linkages across growth regions.
In contrast, In India several large corridors are being planned
between major cities in anticipation of "productive" investment.
These are being facilitated with state support for land
acquisition and infrastructural services. They anticipate
investment through the creation of these infrastructure,
including “world-class” cities (Goldman 2011) without
planning the "productive linkages" that Hirschman (1981)
argued were critical for wider distributive effects. The policy
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
19
rhetoric around infrastructure creation and urbanisation in
India echoes Gottman in Rostowian “take off ” terms (Rostow
1960), but the planned state-directed Indian corridors are
running into considerable trouble over their institution.
Figure 5: A digital representation of the proposed Dholera Smart City
Source: Datta 2014
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
III. Agrarian Land Relations in Dholera
he 22 villages in the Dholera SIR area are a vibrant
landscape of existing relations with land and
resources. A thriving agrarian political economy
cultivating rainfed wheat (the coveted bhaliya ghaun for which
the region is known), cotton, cumin and jowar as well as rearing
milch cattle complements livelihood strategies with other
diverse occupations in the region, including diamond polishing.
The numerically largest community in the area are Koli Patels
(61.8 per cent of the population), who own a majority of
marginal to medium land holdings in the area that many
received ironically through redistributive land reforms. The
next are the large land-holding Darbars (kshatriyas; 10.6 per
cent), followed by a smattering of other communities,
including those dependent on commons like Bharwads
(pastorals), Scheduled Caste communities, Muslims, and barely,
if any, Scheduled Tribes (SENES 2013). Many milch cattle
owning villagers are members of flourishing milk cooperatives
in the area.
T
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
21
Picture 1: Farm land in Village Sarasla, Panchayat Ambli
Photo: Preeti Sampat
The table below gives the total land area of the 22 villages that
the DSIR is attempting to take over.
Table 1: Land area of 22 villages under DSIR
Source: DSIRDA 2013
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
According to official figures, dry-land farming is the source of
livelihood for 79.3 per cent of the local population, while 51.5
per cent depend on livestock rearing and 24.8 per cent on farm
labour; being part of one livelihood category does not exclude
overlaps with another (see Table 2 below; also SENES 2013
for more details).
Table 2: Livelihood Pattern in the Dholera SIR Area
Source: SENES 2013
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
23
The literacy rates in the entire DSIR area are worth
considering, with 35.1 per cent of the population non-literate;
44.4 per cent with primary education; 14.6 per cent with
secondary education; 3 per cent higher secondary, and 2.9 per
cent with college education.
As I recount below, several residents I interviewed in Bavaliyari
and Ambli villages argued that agricultural work does not
require specialised skills sets of the kind that other urbanised
and industrial work may. In this respect, the offer of one job
per affected family will not compensate others in a family
rendered without work. They expressed anxiety that losing
land and commons to the Dholera SIR would render them
without livelihoods and future security.
The 22 villages under the DSIR additionally fall within the
Narmada river canal command area, and canal water has been
awaited for over a decade. The villages were "de-commanded"
in 2014 in the wake of the DSIR, but residents fought for
reinstatement, and the area was subsequently "re-commanded"
in 2015 amid agitations, but were subsequently “de-
commanded” once again. If the water reaches the villages, the
fertile soil will give them two to three yearly crops of wheat,
cotton, cumin and jowar, enriching the local agrarian economy.
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
Given existing skills, literacy and education levels, in nearly all
interviews and meetings, residents irrespective of community
and socio-economic status expressed the desire for greater
state support in strengthening the existing agrarian economy
with the provision of water canals and other agrarian
infrastructure that will create overall prosperity and
development in the region. I represent below key concerns that
some residents raised across community and socio-economic
status.
11
Bavaliyari Panchayat
Champa ben Pratap Singh of Bavaliyari is a nonliterate landless
Koli Patel peasant who cultivates others' lands for 25-30 per cent
share of produce with her husband, Pratap Singh. The couple
have two school-going sons and a daughter. They have three
buffaloes that suffice for their family's needs and allow for
minor sale of milk. During an interview, Champa ben asked if
nonliterates like her would be given jobs in the new smart city
with her skills of cotton picking, cleaning and growing other
crops (interview May 20, 2015; translated from Gujarati). The
11
This is not to obscure caste, gender and other hierarchies across
communities deeply prevalent in the area. However, alliances among
social forces are emerging despite entrenched social inequalities under
threat of dispossession.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
25
Scheduled Caste (SC) community in Bavaliyari has a mandali, a
collective land holding of around 500 acres allotted by the State
that is divided among the SC households in the village for
cultivation. Jayanti bhai Solanki has a 16-acre share in the
mandali. He also bought 10 acres of land in 1982 and owns a
tractor. One of his sons studies in college while the other
farms, and three of his daughters are married.
According to Manju ben, his wife, there should first be a clear
guarantee of work for the locals, and then alone should land
be taken by the State for a project. She added that the canal
water from the Narmada would be of use to them and that "in
the village there can be no development without farming."
Even if one has to go out to a city for work temporarily, she
pointed out, at least there is the security of land to return to in
the village, while the city is too expensive to sustain oneself. If
an industry comes to the area, she asked, "what will we do in
case it closes? On the land, we can grow food and eat and
sustain other livelihood activities" (interview with the author
May 20, 2015; translated from Gujarati).
Dhira bhai Rathore is a Koli Patel from Bavaliyari who has 10
bigha (approximately four acres) share in the land jointly held
by his family of four brothers, in which he is able to grow
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
cotton or wheat. He additionally works as a gowal or cowherd
and takes care of the upkeep of others' animals. In the course
of my interview he asked what he will eat if this land goes
(interview May 20, 2015; translated from Gujarati).
Similarly, Darshan bhai Chonchla from Bavaliyari is a Bharwad
and reveals that he has approximately six acres as share in the
400 acres of land owned by the gopalak mandali (cowherder
collective). He has 20 buffaloes and seven cows and reveals that
there are around 5,000 cattle in the entire village. He asked, "if
a company comes to the village, where will the cattle and
people go? As we are not educated," he argued, "how will we
get jobs" (interview with the author May 21, 2015; translated
from Gujarati)?
Pradyumna Singh Chudasama, a large land-holding Darbar,
with 54 acres of land (and an additional 35 acres in his wife's
name), is a retired officer from the State education department
from Bavaliyari and a key organiser in the anti-DSIR
movement. Chudasama collated details of the DSIR project
through several applications under the Right to Information
Act, 2005. In addition, it maintains documents and records of
all project details, petitions, appeals, communications and
relevant press cuttings for the Bhal Bachao Samiti.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
27
Chudasama is also involved in the writ petition challenging the
DSIR in the Gujarat High Court. While taking me through his
meticulously maintained files, Chudasama made an important
observation: he argued that agricultural work offers gainful
employment to all people irrespective of their abilities and
capacities. Aged as well as special physical and mental abilities
people can find gainful work in agriculture, but a factory will
not hire everyone and will require specific skills sets.
Several petitions have been made to the DSIR Authorities and
the State government requesting the cancellation of the
project. The petitions of the villagers opposing the project
have not been taken into account officially (interview with the
author May 20, 2015; translated from Gujarati).
Ambli Panchayat
Dalal ben and Dhiru bhai Kanani are a Koli Patel family from
Sarasla village, Ambli panchayat and have about six acres of
land. They are nonliterate and additionally work as agricultural
labourers. They have two sons who work in the diamond
polishing industry, and two daughters, one of whom is
married. Dhiru bhai fears that no will give a job or listen to
uneducated people in the project. Instead he argued that if the
Narmada canal comes to the area they will be able to sustain
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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themselves and improve their conditions (interview with the
author May 22, 2015; translated from Gujarati).
Lalita ben Bana Jadav of Sarasla village in Ambli panchayat is
also a Koli Patel and has a small plot of about three acres as her
husband Bana Jadav's share among three brothers. She used to
work as an agricultural labourer but injured her back two years
ago. Her husband works at a hotel on the highway outside the
village and they have two sons and two daughters, one of
whom is married. While performing her chores in the kitchen
garden outside her house, she explained that they (the villagers)
do not want a city and the women of the area will fight, as the
entire village is against giving the land to the project.
If the project materialises, she argued, people would die; the
uneducated would not stand a chance in getting jobs in the
project. She argued that it is a lie that they will prosper with
land values appreciating, as the land being allotted is close to
the sea and prone to flooding. With a majority of the
population in the area non-literate, she expressed scepticism
over the creation of locally owned tourism and other service-
oriented businesses. She added that what the farmers of the
area need is Narmada canal water to enhance productivity
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
29
(interview with the author, May 22, 2015; translated from
Gujarati).
Salim bhai Maru is a Muslim from Dodhiya Para in Ambli
panchayat and shares about 40 acres of land with four
brothers. He has five cows. In his interview, he complained that
the rate of compensation fixed for the 50 per cent of land
sought by the DSIR is very low at Rs. 70 per bigha compared
with the market price of Rs. 400 per bigha. Additionally, he
raised the issue that if the other half of the land is to be
developed and returned to the original owners in 15 years, what
are people supposed to do for livelihood in the meanwhile?
(interview with the author, May 22, 2015; translated from
Gujarati)
12
12
This account should not be read as implying that all is well with the
agrarian economy in place and "development" is not important or
necessary in the villages. Rather, as voiced above, residents argue for
the need to strengthen existing agrarian infrastr ucture and support
mechanisms in favouring it as opposed to a complete overhaul of the
region. The contest then is over defining the terms of development
and its beneficiaries.
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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Picture 2: Cattle Shed in Village Ambli
Photo: Preeti Sampat
Like Lalita ben above, several residents claim that the developed
plots allotted to them are within the flood prone areas where
they will not be able to live, graze cattle, or cultivate fields.
Indeed, the Development Plan shows tourism and residential
zones on areas reclaimed from the sea.
Additionally, adjacent to the area is the Velavadar National Park
that has a blackbuck
13
sanctuary. By law, the park has to be
protected by a 10 km buffer zone around it, but the
13
A species of antelope indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and
listed as 'near threatened' by the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature in its Red List since 2003.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
31
development plan overlooks and violates this stipulation. It
focuses, instead, on providing wildlife crossings and flood
mitigation as compensation measures to protect the wildlife of
the area from the urban centre.
A committee with representatives of the 22 villages impacted
by the project, the Bhal Bachao Samiti, has been formed by local
residents to resist the project, with each village reportedly
constituting a sub-committee. Local residents have also filed a
writ petition in the High Court of Gujarat challenging the take-
over of their productive agricultural land by the State. As
resistance brews, contingent alliances along caste, class,
community and gender differences coalesce in confrontation
with interests in the State and private planners promoting the
DSIR.
At the moment, there is little actual private investment on the
ground in Dholera. State-level bureaucrats in charge of
facilitating the development of Dholera claim that investors
"will come only when there is something on the ground"
(interview with Shardul Thakore of GICC; April 29, 2015). A
highly placed corporate source brokering land deals in the
region reveals on request of anonymity that while several
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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attempts have been made with advertisements and field trips
for investors from Dubai, Mumbai and elsewhere, no investor
is interested in the area as there is "nothing" on the ground.
The only "stray buyers" of land around the Dholera SIR are
those parking “excess” money in land to gain from future
appreciation, many allegedly powerful politicians; or those who
cannot afford to buy plots near Ahmedabad (interview with
the author, May 25, 2015).
Representatives of two prominent real estate developers I
interviewed in Ahmedabad, Bakeri Group and Parshwanath
Construction, also expressed unwillingness to invest in
Dholera due to lack of demand (interviews May 28, 2015).
Photo 3: Public meeting against DSIR, Village Hebatpur
Photo: Preeti Sampat
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
33
The Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board (GIDB) is the
apex authority under the SIR Act 2009 and functions as the
regulatory board for all SIR projects in the State. In his
interview Ajay Bhadoo, the Chief Executive Officer of the
GIDB claimed no knowledge of resistance in the DSIR area
and further claimed that adequate public consultations had
been undertaken in the region regarding the project (interview
April 29, 2015). An official of the Gujarat Industrial Corridor
Corporation (constituted in 2009 for the implementation of
the DMIC projects in Gujarat) overseeing the DSIR, Shardul
Thakore, described the project as a "nation-building exercise"
and claimed that 140 public consultations had already been
undertaken in the area, including every village. They claimed
that people had been "educated" and any resistance had been
addressed (interview April 29, 2015).
Trivedi, a Town Planning officer in Dholera at the DSIR
Authority office also denied the presence of any local
opposition in the DSIR villages and claimed that surveys were
being successfully undertaken by a private contractor for the
Town Planning Office to ascertain plot survey numbers and
titles in the area (interview May 22, 2015). However, my
interviews with villagers run counter to these claims. Anxiety
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE OR RENTIER GROWTH?
and opposition over loss of land and livelihoods in the region
is palpable, as interviews with local residents and the public
meetings I attended in the region substantiate.
Existing relations with land and resources must be discursively
rendered "unproductive" through categorisations such as
"barren lands" or "backward areas" to make good on promises
of spectacular anticipated returns from rent and other values
attached to high-end urban enclaves.
Consequently, we see frequent descriptions of the region as
barren in official and media accounts, including in official
presentations and during interviews with bureaucrats. Indeed,
claims that there is "nothing" on the ground by State officials
and private developers disclose policy bias in favour of
urbanisation and against the local agrarian economy. I examine
below the land pooling mechanism and critique its provisions
for public consultation.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
35
IV. ‘Land Pooling, Not Acquisition’
n a landscape fraught with widespread resistance to
land acquisition over infrastructure projects across the
country, especially in the last decade, public
consultation and prior informed consent for development
projects have assumed significance like never before. The
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s failure to
push through amendments to the 2013 land acquisition law
exemplifies this ferment poignantly. The amendments
proposed the exemption to industrial corridors from consent
and social impact assessment requirements. In the aftermath
of this failure, the NITI Aayog Vice Chairperson, Arvind
Panagariya, has gone on record to suggest that State
governments should rely on land pooling mechanisms for
infrastructure development projects to avoid the “draconian”
provisions of the 2013 land acquisition law (Sharma 2015).
Official insistence on the use of the mechanism of land
pooling for the Dholera SIR is arguably to avoid the pejorative
connotations of forcible acquisition. The mechanism of
pooling however, whilst nodding to consultation, is misleading,
if not outright disingenuous. Significantly, it is unclear how the
I
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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mechanism can be used to consolidate land in the face of
opposition to a project.
In my interview with them, GICC officials, conceded, though
after some persistent probing, that if there is indeed opposition
on the ground (the town planning law does not explicitly
enable the use of force), the project may have to be cancelled
(interview April 29, 2015). However, with the lack of official
acknowledgement of any opposition, the process has become
uncertain and unclear. Representatives from the GICC and the
official record maintain that 140 public consultations have
been held in the region. Local residents claim, on the other
hand, that only preliminary meetings introducing the project
were held in the area, and attendance was officially assumed to
stand in for consent.
The land pooling mechanism under the GTPUDA is premised
on the principle that the development authority in charge of
undertaking planned urban development temporarily brings
together a group of landowners to plan a region’s
development. As there is no “acquisition” or “transfer of
ownership,” the case for “compensation” does not arise,
except for the proportion of the land “deducted” for basic
infrastructure provision.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
37
A betterment charge, based on the cost of infrastructure
proposed, is to be levied on the landowners. The rest of the
land remains with the original landowners and the “benefit” of
development, in terms of the increment in land value as a
result of “development”, accrues to the owners, rather than
the development agency. The original owners are not displaced
and continue to have access to the land (see Ballaney 2008;
GoG 2009 1979). Setting aside the merits or demerits of this
approach to urban expansion, the incorporation of the
GTPUDA into the SIR Act in Gujarat for a greenfield
industrial city poses a particular set of issues that the language
of pooling and benefit obscures.
First, the extent of land required for a new city implies far
greater land loss than in the course of expansion of an existing
city. Second, the rezoning of land according to a new city's
development plan implies that the original agricultural plots
can no longer be retained by owners and they have to be
relocated. Third, with the development of a new city (and this
is true for the expansion of existing cities as well), even if
village settlements are protected with buffer zones, conditions
will invariably develop where it will no longer be tenable for
the old rural settlements to continue in the same form. This
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would force the original inhabitants to move as they get priced
out, search for livelihoods or affordable living options. Fourth,
with the disruption of the agrarian economy and the rezoning
and subdivision of plots, agricultural livelihoods face severe
temporal and physical dislocation, and only large farmers with
the holding power to wait the years for “development” of the
rezoned plots and with enough surplus land may retain their
hold on cultivation and allied agricultural activities. Fifth, with
the growth of industry, tourism, construction and other related
economic activities, a severe downward pressure is additionally
exerted on agrarian livelihoods and resources. Sixth, with
immediate attractive returns, the push is towards greater
commodification of land, and income from rent, as opposed
to existing productive agricultural activity, raising issues of
food security and sovereignty.
Additionally, once land is pooled, it can be presumed that
developing and returning 50 per cent land to the original
owners will take a few years. Whether the anticipated
investment in the project will eventually come to fruition and
ensure better livelihoods and living conditions for the local
residents, is a moot question. What previous owners and others
dependent on the land are expected to do in the intervening
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
39
years for livelihood and food security is unclear.
Under the Gujarat town planning law, planning is to be
undertaken in two phases: a Development Plan (DP) is to be
prepared first for the entire area affected by the project,
followed by several Town Planning Schemes (TPS) for smaller
portions of the development area. A draft DP is initially
prepared and kept open for public inspection for two months,
inviting objections and suggestions to its terms. The DP can
then be modified and republished to invite further objections
and suggestions that may again be incorporated. This version
of the DP is then forwarded for approval to the State
government, which in turn may suggest further modifications.
The final DP is then prepared.
The TPS are the micro plans for the development of smaller
areas under the final DP. Each TPS similarly is expected to
allow “consultation” and “participation” in its drafting and the
implementation of the final DP.
Despite space for objections in the technicalities of the
provisions of the DP and the TPS - such as final plot
allotments - the value of land deductions or overall zoning in
the project, unlike in the 2013 land acquisition law, the DP
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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makes no room for objections by affected landowners; or for
specific measures for ascertaining consent for the project.
There is in fact an implicit a priori assumption of consent built
into the land pooling mechanism that poses a significant
cleavage with the official avowal of “voluntary” pooling. As
such, the pooling mechanism falls far short of the principle of
prior informed consent as well as decentralised and democratic
decision making in development processes in keeping with the
73rd Amendment Act (Panchayati Raj) provisions.
This significant oversight is made glaring by the fact that the
DSIR and presumably other such greenfield city-making
projects are to be developed through public private
partnerships. The 2013 land acquisition law in public private
partnership projects mandates the consent of 70 per cent of
original landowners before a project can be undertaken. The
pooling mechanism circumvents consent-based development
through a disingenuous terminology consultation. It
attempts to achieve through other means the exemption of
industrial corridor SIR projects from prior informed consent
and social impact assessments, the two key controversial
amendments proposed in the 2013 land acquisition law that
were recently defeated due to opposition.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
41
V. Dholera and ‘the Rentier Economy’
he final Development Plan for the DSIR reveals the
active role of rent in the compensation envisaged
for land owners:
The land owners provided with readjusted land would
need to be trained to negotiate with the industry/
developers for giving land for industrial use on lease
rental basis rather than outright sale basis; or industrial
houses setting-up industries could be encouraged to
provide certain share-holding to the land owner. It
would help the land owner to ensure regular income
from the land allotted to them.
The Plan adds:
The owners could also be encouraged to invest in
housing and commercial uses to have an opportunity for
rental incomes, for which people would need to be
supported through appropriate capacity building
measures (DSIRDA 2013: 150).
14
As I have argued elsewhere, growing differential rent from
conversion of agricultural land to real estate is reconfiguring
the political economy of land in urban peripheries. With
14
The Plan also reserves a token the place for agriculture in the DSIR
schema: "Facilitating agricultural training for improved productivity
for farmers left with part of their agricultural land and extension of
facilities for seeds and fertilisers for improved productivity" (ibid.).
T
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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appreciation of land prices as infrastructure and development
projects are announced, some farmers thus "give up” land
without resistance for immediate returns, as agriculture is
rendered less profitable or valuable (Sampat 2015a). Investors
and builders may or may not have direct stakes in potential
productive linkages emerging from real estate creation (the few
numbers of operational SEZs, despite concessions, are
instructive). The policy emphases on industrialisation and
infrastructure complement the rent-driven logic of land
commodification. In the case of Dholera, the active
encouragement of rentiering from the institution of smart city
infrastructure can only accelerate downward pressures on the
agrarian economy of the region.
Chudasama points out that in 2011 the Revenue Department
sold land under its possession to the DSIR Development
Authority at Rs. 20 per square meter (sq. m.), and the SIR
authority is now attempting to sell this land to industry at Rs.
600 per sq. m. The difference is retained by the Development
Authority, creating a significant state tier in the rentier
economy being instituted by the project.
15
Added to this tier,
15
The significant role of interests within the state rentiering from land
consolidation and acquisition processes has led some to describe the
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
43
are other political and economic elite investing in land around
Dholera in anticipation of future land-price appreciation. By
several local accounts, powerful politicians have already
invested in the land around Dholera, presumably adding to the
impetus behind the smart city project. While rent from real
estate is anticipated, much like investment in industry, rent
from land is an active constituent of the region's economic
transformation.
In his analysis of Indian land markets, Chakravorty (2013)
argues that land prices in India have risen phenomenally and
growing real estate prices reflect the rise in the price of land,
given construction costs have risen stably along the consumer
price index. He points out that current urban land prices range
from Rs. 50,000 to 200 crore per acre, and the price of urban
land has increased five-fold in 2001-11. Agricultural land prices
in some rural areas may have increased by a factor of five to
Indian state as a wholesale 'land-broker state' (see Levien 2012) or a
'speculative state' (Goldman 2011). However, as I discuss in my work
elsewhere, interests within the state are often working at cross-
purposes and respond to political contingencies and possibilities in
complex ways (see Sampat 2015b; also Sampat Forthcoming). In this
case then, while rentiering interests within the state constitute an
important tier in what I call the rentier economy, the state itself is not
amenable to the descriptor 'rentier state.'
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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10 over the past decade and that agricultural land price is higher
in the urban periphery than in interior districts. Prices vary, he
suggests, along productivity and income from land, how active
local land markets are, and the scarcity of land supply and
fragmentation.
He argues that the rising price of land is caused by expansion
of money supply in the post-liberalisation period because of
the following factors. Expansion of credit markets; income
growth for some sections, who in turn, invest in land and
property as status markers; rise in “black” money; foreign
investment from Non-Resident Indians; and the scarcity of
land with respect to location and intense fragmentation.
It is in the gap between the absence of investor interest and
the anticipation of future investments that a rentier economy
emerges as the driving force behind the Dholera smart city.
While industrialisation plays a significant role in the imaginary
of Dholera and the DMIC, it bears noting that manufacturing
in India has stagnated at 15 per cent to 16 per cent of the gross
domestic product since 1980 (GoI 2011). Indeed, in an
interview to the author, a senior industry representative in
Ahmedabad candidly acknowledged that land and
infrastructure are not the critical issues for boosting
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
45
manufacturing, as serious industrialists are not looking for
concessions from the government. He pointed out that it is
real estate interests that seek subsidised land from the State.
What industry requires instead is a focus on "soft
infrastructure" and an easing of bureaucratic procedures and
rules that allow 'ease of doing business' (interview April 23,
2015).
Even as manufacturing stagnates, the construction sector is
booming. The growing share of construction in the national
economy underscores the significance of this sector. In 2011-
12, the shares of real estate and construction together
accounted for 19 per cent of the Indian economy, growing
from 14.7 per cent in 2000-01 (GoI 2013b; see Table 1 below).
More remarkably, in 2009-10, the construction sector formed
the second largest employer of workers in India, employing 11
per cent of the workforce after agriculture, which employed 36
per cent (Soundararajan 2013). This growth helps contextualise
the recent policy push towards urbanisation and urban
infrastructure in India. Land, and by extension real estate, is
"like gold with yield" in so-called emerging economies (cf.
Fairbairn 2014).
16
16
Fairbairn (2014) examines investments by global finance in agrarian
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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land for agriculture and I extend her argument here to examine
investment in land for rent from price appreciation and real estate.
Table-3.1
Share and Growth of Real Estate and Construction Sectors
2000
-01
2005
-06
2006
-07
2007
-08
Real estate, ownership of
dwellings & business
services
8.7
(7.5)
9.1
(10.6)
9.3
(9.5)
9.6
(8.4)
Construction
6.0
(6.1)
7.9
(12.8)
8.2
(10.3)
8.5
(10.8)
Source: Compiled from Central Statistics Office in GoI 2013b;
Shares are in current prices and growth in constant prices. Figures in
brackets indicate growth rate.
Table 3.2:
Share and Growth of Real Estate and Construction Sectors
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
2012-13
Real estate,
ownership of
dwellings & business
services
10.3
(10.4)
10.4
(8.3)
10.4
(6.0)
10.8
(10.3)
Construction
8.5
(5.3)
8.2
(6.7)
8.2
(10.2)
8.2
(5.6)
8.2
(5.9)
Source: Compiled from Central Statistics Office in GoI 2013b;
Shares are in current prices and growth in constant prices. Figures in
brackets indicate growth rate.
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
47
Urbanisation, Infrastructure and Rent
According the erstwhile Planning Commission of India:
[Around] 300 million Indians currently live in towns and
cities. Within 20-25 years, another 300 million people will
get added to Indian towns and cities. This urban
expansion will happen at a speed quite unlike anything
that India has seen before. It took nearly forty years for
India’s urban population to rise by 230 million. It could
take only half the time to add the next 250 million (GoI
2013a).
A recent report by Cushman & Wakefield ranks India 20th
among the current top 20 real estate investment markets
globally, with an investment of $3.4 billion in 2012 (ET
2013). A study by Global Construction Perspectives and
Oxford Economics further predicts that India will become
the world’s third largest construction market by 2025,
adding 11.5 million homes a year to become a $1 trillion a
year market (Sen 2013).
Although foreign investments in real estate and indeed land
remain regulated, and global finance is unable to directly invest
in housing, commercial and retail real estate; global finance
fuels growth in the rentier economy through investments in
built environments for urbanisation and infrastructure projects
such as smart cities, industrial corridors, or public private
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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partnerships. In addition to the large number of smaller-scale,
regional, State and district-level developers, fly-by-night
operators, brokers and dealers out to make a quick buck, join
the ranks in fuelling the rentier driven commodification of
land and built space.
The policy impetus for urbanisation encompasses not just the
outskirts of existing cities and new cities, but also urban
infrastructure schemes in industrial corridors like the Dholera
SIR. The displacement of existing productive agrarian
relations in anticipation of rent from future investment is a
developmental leap of the greenfield city model of growth.
Despite the active role of the state in promoting the project,
this leap cannot be understood without the underlying drive
for the absorption and expansion of surplus value (or profit).
In capitalist reasoning, this is ‘accumulation’ that state actors
promoting the project hope to capture. Investment in
infrastructure and urbanisation to improve connectivity is
critical for the movement of capital and the absorption and
expansion of excess surplus value. Transport and other
infrastructural and urban connectivity facilitates the
'annihilation of space by time,' and enables faster movements
of goods, services, information and money flows (Harvey
1982; 2001).
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
49
Investments in infrastructure and the urban areas along the
DMIC are expected to serve global and domestic capitalist
circuits and create an urban geography of growth. The
diversification of several large global and domestic business
houses and finance capital into housing, infrastructure and
retail construction points to the significance and scale of this
“fix” for capital, irrespective of the realisation of the promise of
industrialisation. The institution of the DSIR under the guise
of urbanisation is a cover for rent-driven growth serving the
political and economic elite able to profit from rentier
investments.
The ‘creative destruction’ of existing infrastructure and
relationships with land and resources that this rentierism
unleashes, however, is officially unacknowledged or obscured.
The opposition to this destruction is officially silenced. If
official assertions of the massive movement of 300 million
people from rural to urban areas over the next two decades
bear out, the implications for dispossession and uprooting of
rural populations, agrarian livelihoods and cultures, and large-
scale land-use change with consequent conflict and stresses on
the environment and food security are serious. In turn, the
consolidation and acquisition of land for urbanisation and
DHOLERA SMART CITY:
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infrastructure projects is fiercely resisted and is creating
recurrent conditions of impasse for the model of economic
growth underpinning them.
Anticipated rent from appreciating land values and real estate
plays a critical role in the official legitimacy for the Dholera
smart city. Despite the terminology of pooling and
consultation, consent remains an unacknowledged element in
the institution of the Dholera SIR. The imagined futures that
moor this greenfield city plan are tenuous and rife with
possibilities of resistance and overthrow.
These futures can then be attempted only with resort to force
and violence by the state that must also account for electoral
contingencies. This rentier-driven paradigm of growth is
increasingly conflated with development in policy discourse;
the resistance to the institution of the Dholera smart city, in
turn marks the possibilities of (re)articulating the terms of
development 'from below.'
POLICY REPORT NO. 13
51
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