Land pooling

What the sanction directs, and what it does not

The sanction for Dholera Draft Town Planning Scheme No. 3 directs the Town Planning Officer to maintain an average fifty per cent deduction, with named exceptions. That is a deduction across a whole scheme, not an entitlement attached to any one plot, and no supplied document states the owner return as a percentage. The balance after the deduction is what gets reconstituted into the final plot.

SheetPooling

Deduction50 per cent average

Evidenced forScheme 3

Last verified2026-08-04

Per cent deduction

Average across the scheme, as at 24 October 2013. notif_dtps3.pdf p.2. OFFICIAL

Scheme it was read in

Draft Town Planning Scheme No. 3 only. The file set holds no equivalent direction for the other seven records.

Excepted categories

Named in the same sentence as the deduction, counted from the quotation itself. notif_dtps3.pdf p.2. OFFICIAL

Provisions quoted

Every one reproduced in full on the citation register.

The direction, quoted

Maintain average 50% deduction except gauchar land, water bodies, religious places, burial ground, kabrastan, crematorium and samshan.
Apex Authority (GIDB) Notification No. SIRAA/06/2013/439 dated 24-10-2013 sanctioning Dholera Draft Town Planning Scheme No. 3, SCHEDULE, item 5, notif_dtps3.pdf p.2, verbatim OFFICIAL

Average deduction across the scheme is 50 per cent. Gauchar (village grazing) land, water bodies, religious places, burial ground, kabrastan, crematorium and samshan are excepted from that deduction.

The supplied documents state the DEDUCTION, not the retention. The Apex Authority notification sanctioning Dholera Draft TP Scheme No. 3 directs the Town Planning Officer to 'Maintain average 50% deduction' with named exceptions. The balance left after that deduction is what is reconstituted into the owner's final plot. No supplied document uses the phrasing 'the owner gets back X%'; that number is stated only as its complement, the deduction.

The headline figure and its provenance *Source: land_pooling_mechanism.headline_figure of tp-schemes.json, from the Schedule to Apex Authority notification SIRAA/06/2013/439*
Field	Value
Deduction	50per cent
Unit	per cent of land covered by the scheme
Basis	average across the scheme, not a per-plot guarantee
String as printed	Maintain average 50% deduction
Owner retention as stated	the balance after the deduction
Is the retention figure quoted	no, it is arithmetic performed by this atlas
Date of value	24 October 2013
Source	notif_dtps3.pdf p.2
Classification	OFFICIAL

Where the deduction comes from in the Act

Numbered bands: 1 roads at 15 per cent; 2 parks at 5 per cent; 3 social infrastructure at 5 per cent; 4 sale by appropriate authority for residential at 15 per cent; 5 backward class housing at 10 per cent. Drawn on a hundred unit scale at build time from the quotations above. Sources gtpuda.pdf pp.31 and 32. The band beyond the fiftieth unit is not a quoted figure and is marked as ours.

The percentages enumerated in GTPUDA s.40(3)(jj)(a) sum to 40 (15 + 5 + 5 + 15); adding the 10 per cent reservation in s.40(3)(j) gives 50. This sum is arithmetic performed by us on the quoted figures, it is NOT a quote from the Act, and the Act does not state a combined 50 per cent ceiling in those terms.

Inputs: gtpuda.pdf p32, gtpuda.pdf p31. Derived by this atlas: yes. Both provisions are quoted in full on the land classes page and on the citation register.

How the Development Plan describes it

Under the Town Planning (TP) Schemes land is not acquired by the Government agency. It is reshaped, readjusted and returned to the original owner. Generally when a Town Planning Scheme is laid in an area, a certain per cent of land is deducted from original plot and utilised in providing common infrastructure and facilities like roads, gardens, play grounds etc. Land parcels retained by the authority are then used for 'public purposes'.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, Section 10.5 The Proposed Strategy for DSIR, dp_report1.pdf p.182, printed p.160, verbatim OFFICIAL

The principle for reconstitution of plots under TP Scheme is so designed, that final plot after mandatory deduction, is allocated as close to the original plot as possible. The Government is also considering exemption to betterment/development charges, for the final plots being allocated, will not be levied on the private owner.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, Section 10.5 The Proposed Strategy for DSIR, dp_report1.pdf p.182, printed p.160, verbatim OFFICIAL

Under this model, the development authority brings together a group of landowners for the purpose of planning and a Town Planning Scheme for the area is prepared, laying out the roads and plots for public and social amenities. The remaining land is reconstituted into final plots for the original owners, with the size of the final plot in proportion to the size of the original plot, and its location as close as possible to the original plot. Infrastructure costs are recovered by levying a betterment charge on the landowners based on the cost of the infrastructure.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, sanctioned by Apex Authority (GIDB) on 10 September 2012, Section 10.4.3 Town Planning Schemes, dp_report1.pdf p.181, printed p.159, verbatim OFFICIAL

The betterment-charge exemption is stated as under consideration, not as granted. Do not present it as a settled benefit.

The other fifty per cent, which is not the same thing

Two different fifty per cents appear in these documents and they measure different quantities. One is a share of land deducted under a scheme. The other is a ceiling on a money contribution, expressed as a share of the increase in the value of the land. Conflating them is the single most common error made about land pooling.

(i)(a) where the cost of the scheme does not exceed half the increment, the cost shall be met wholly by a contribution, and (b) where it exceeds half the increment, to the extent of half the increment it shall be met by a contribution and the excess shall be borne by the appropriate authority;
Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976, Section 79(1) proviso (i) - Contribution towards costs of scheme, gtpuda.pdf p.47, printed p.40, verbatim OFFICIAL

The betterment contribution levied on an owner is capped at one half of the increment (the increase in market value attributable to the scheme). Cost above that cap falls on the appropriate authority.

Compensation is paid to land owner of the land taken away for roads and public facilities. At the same time, betterment charges known as incremental contribution are collected from each owner to the maximum of 50 percent of the estimated increase in the land value after plot reconstitution. The funds so generated are utilized for the development of infrastructure and common facilities within the scheme area.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, Section 10.4.3 Town Planning Schemes, dp_report1.pdf p.181, printed p.159, verbatim OFFICIAL

Cautions carried from the dataset

'Average 50% deduction' is an instruction to the Town Planning Officer for a whole scheme. It is not a per-plot entitlement and does not guarantee that any individual owner's final plot equals 50 per cent of their original plot.
The 50 per cent in the DTPS-3 sanction Schedule (a LAND deduction) and the 50 per cent in GTPUDA s.79 and the DP report (a cap on the betterment CONTRIBUTION, expressed as a share of the increase in land VALUE) are two different things that happen to share a number. Never conflate them.
The 'average 50% deduction' direction was read in the sanction notification for Draft TP Scheme No. 3 only. The supplied file set contains no equivalent direction for schemes 1, 2, 2/A, 4, 4/A, 5 or 6.
The GTPUDA copy supplied (gtpuda.pdf) is a scan with a poor OCR text layer. All quoted statutory figures above were verified against rendered page images, not the OCR text.

These cautions are reproduced from the dataset itself rather than written for this page. They are the conditions under which the fifty per cent figure above may be repeated at all.