Zirakpur Was Meant To Be Industrial, Mullanpur A Country Retreat: What The GMADA Regional Plan Assigned Each Town ज़ीरकपुर को औद्योगिक होना था, मुल्लांपुर एक ग्रामीण विश्रामस्थल: GMADA क्षेत्रीय योजना ने प्रत्येक शहर को क्या सौंपा ਜ਼ੀਰਕਪੁਰ ਨੂੰ ਉਦਯੋਗਿਕ ਬਣਾਇਆ ਜਾਣਾ ਸੀ, ਮੁੱਲਾਂਪੁਰ ਨੂੰ ਦਿਹਾਤੀ ਆਰਾਮਗਾਹ: GMADA ਖੇਤਰੀ ਯੋਜਨਾ ਨੇ ਹਰ ਕਸਬੇ ਨੂੰ ਕੀ ਸੌਂਪਿਆ

Above the town master plans for the region sits one document that is rarely cited: the regional plan that runs to 2058 and gave each of the towns around Mohali a job to do.

Two of those assignments are worth putting side by side, because the same document produced opposite results.

What the regional plan is

The Greater Mohali Region Master Plan, 2008 to 2058 was prepared by Jurong Consultants of Singapore, the firm that also drew the individual town plans beneath it. GMADA publishes it on its own site as the GMADA Regional Plan, in two parts, the Plan and the Report.

It covers the Local Planning Areas around Chandigarh, including SAS Nagar, Zirakpur, Kharar, Mullanpur, Banur and Derabassi, and maps out the region's long-term physical development for a population of about four million.

It also divided the region into economic clusters and gave each town a role. That distribution is the part that matters.

What Zirakpur was told to become

Hardcore manufacturing. Warehousing. Medium and small manufacturing.

That is the assignment as the regional plan records it. The SAS Nagar master plan report lists Zirakpur's role as heavy manufacturing, wholesale and trading, warehousing, and medium and small manufacturing. Zirakpur was to be the region's industrial and logistics town.

The logic is clear on a map. Zirakpur sits on the Chandigarh-Ambala and Panchkula-Patiala highways. If any town in this region was going to move goods, it was that one.

What Zirakpur became is different. The revised Zirakpur master plan records a 2031 population projection of 1,29,038 and a 2056 projection of 4,30,128. By December 2023, The Tribune put the town's population at around five lakh, roughly four times the 2031 figure and already beyond the 2056 one. The same report found that Zirakpur had no robust storm water drainage system, relying on choes and rivulets that had been clogged or encroached upon by colonies. The revised plan records parks at 4.8 hectares, 0.11 per cent of the area.

The town designated for heavy manufacturing and warehousing filled up with flats and colonies instead.

What Mullanpur was told to become

Resort centre. Low density country living. Northern gateway.

A different kind of place entirely: the region's green, premium, low-density edge, positioned at its northern approach.

That one largely happened. The area was developed as New Chandigarh. GMADA's Eco City Phase I there was assembled entirely through land pooling, and GMADA names DLF, Omaxe, Altus Space Builders and Innovative Housing Infrastructure as the main private developers in the area. It also carries the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital and GMADA's Medicity.

The plan said resort centre and country living, and what arrived was a low-density, premium township on land assembled by the authority.

And SAS Nagar

Mohali itself was designated the region's core, with an airport and aviation hub role, a designation that eventually produced Aerocity and the Aerotropolis.

The SAS Nagar master plan report also recorded that connectivity from SAS Nagar to Mullanpur and Panchkula was limited, and proposed expressways and arterial roads to link the towns. PR-6, one of those arterial roads, had not been started as of September 2025, with the land for it acquired in 2014.

The pattern

Zirakpur was told to be industrial and became residential. Mullanpur was told to be low density and premium and became exactly that. The difference is not planning quality.

What separates them is what the market wanted to do with each place anyway. Zirakpur was cheap, sat on highways within commuting distance of Chandigarh, and demand there was for housing that people priced out of the planned cities could afford. A designation on a regional plan did not stop that, and nothing in the plan compelled anyone to build a warehouse instead of a colony.

Mullanpur was developed by the authority and large licensed colonisers on land assembled through acquisition and land pooling, working to an approved plan. When the state controls the land and the colonisers need licences, a designation sticks.

The regional plan designates. It does not compel. Where land was assembled plot by plot by private sellers, the plan described an intention that nobody was obliged to follow. Where land was assembled and developed by the authority, the plan became the thing that was built.

What the record shows for buyers

A regional designation has not worked as a forecast. The plan designated Zirakpur for manufacturing and warehousing in 2008, and the town became predominantly residential.

The regional plan is not the governing document for a parcel. It sets roles and strategy. What a specific piece of land may be used for is set by the Local Planning Area plan and any amendment to it.

Control of the land has been the best predictor of delivery. Authority-assembled land in an approved scheme, as in Mullanpur, turned out as planned. Privately assembled land in a growth belt, as in Zirakpur, turned out as whatever sold.

The plan's assumptions have aged. It was drawn for a fifty-year horizon beginning in 2008. Eighteen of those years have passed, and Zirakpur has already outgrown the population the plan projected for it in 2056.

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Sources

- Master Plans, Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, for the GMADA Regional Plan published as Plan and Report alongside the individual town plans
- Revised Master Plan, Zirakpur, Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, for the Greater Mohali Region Master Plan 2008-2058 as the regional framework, the designation of Zirakpur for hardcore manufacturing, warehousing and medium and small manufacturing and of Mullanpur as resort centre and low density country living, the 2031 and 2056 population projections for Zirakpur, and the area recorded under parks
- Master Plan Report for S.A.S Nagar, 2006-2031, Jurong Consultants for GMADA, for the regional population of about four million, the economic cluster roles including Mullanpur as resort centre, low density country living and northern gateway, the airport and aviation hub designation, and the limited connectivity to Mullanpur and Panchkula
- Poor drainage bane of Zirakpur, The Tribune, December 2023, for Zirakpur's population of around five lakh and the state of its storm water drainage
- Development Plans, Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, for the main private developers in New Chandigarh
- Eco City, Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, for Eco City Phase I acquired under 100 per cent land pooling
- Residents raise concern over incomplete projects in Mohali, The Tribune, 30 September 2025, for the 2014 acquisition of land for PR-6 and the road remaining unbuilt