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A plain-language guide

Delhi land pooling,
explained

You own farmland on the edge of Delhi. The government wants a city on it. Here is exactly what it is offering you.

Read from the notified Master Plan · 20 August 2026

What land pooling actually is

The whole idea in one picture

For decades, when Delhi needed your land, it bought it — or acquired it and paid compensation. You got money once. That was the end of your connection to the land.

Land pooling is a different deal. You keep a share of the land instead of taking cash. You hand over your field. Roads, water lines, sewers, parks and electricity get laid across the whole area. Then you get back a smaller piece — but a serviced, plotted, city piece you are allowed to build on.

Less land. Far more valuable land. That is the entire bargain, and everything else on this page is detail about it.

Before and after
TODAY — SCATTERED HOLDINGS POOLED AFTER — A PLANNED SECTOR
Homes Shops & offices Parks School, clinic, civic Roads
The colours are the ones the Master Plan itself uses for each land use. Same land, reorganised — and the roads and parks on the right have to come out of somebody's field. That is the part you contribute.
2018
Policy notified, 11 October
105
Villages covered
200 sq km
Land pooling area across Delhi
2047
Master Plan now governing it

Is my land even in this?

Three gates — you have to clear all three

Most people ask only the first question and assume the answer settles it. There are three, and a great deal of land passes the first and fails the third.

The three gates
1 · The right zone Is it in K-I, L, N, P-II, or the eligible part of J or P-I? 2 · Notified Has the area been declared a “Development Area” yet? 3 · Not excluded Is it clear of the seven carve-outs listed below? no → outside the policy All three yes → you may register, at any size of holding
Gate 2 is the one people miss. Your zone appearing in the Master Plan does not switch the policy on for your field — the area has to be separately notified as a Development Area first.

The seven carve-outs

Even inside a pooling zone, the Master Plan takes these off the table completely:

And three things must all be true about your papers The land must be free of every loan, mortgage and dispute. You must have lawful ownership. And you must be in physical possession. All three together — a field you own on paper but do not actually hold does not qualify.

How much land do you need?

Any size may join. Two hectares decides what you get back.

Both the Master Plan and DDA say the same thing about joining: land of any size can be pooled. There is no floor to register. That is true, and almost every explainer stops there.

It is not the whole answer. There is a second threshold that decides something far more important than whether you may join — whether you get land back at all.

Under 2 hectares and on your own, you get built space — not a plot DDA's own answer is blunt. A landowner with less than 2 hectares who is not part of a Developer Entity is eligible only for built space — constructed area — and how much is decided later, when the Implementation Plan is finalised. Not a serviced plot with your name on it. This matters to almost everybody: in one surveyed sector, most landowners held under one hectare.

So the 2-hectare line is not about eligibility to join. It is the line between getting land and getting floor space on somebody else's land. And the way across it is grouping.

The two-hectare line
ALONE, UNDER 2 HA 0.6 ha BUILT SPACE floor area, not a plot How much is settled later, at Implementation Plan stage — so you agree before you know the number. GROUPED TO 2 HA OR MORE you + neighbours DEVELOPED LAND a serviced, plotted share under the 60:40 split Grouping needs a legally enforceable agreement between the owners. That document is the whole difference.
A Developer Entity can be one owner who reaches 2 hectares, a group of owners who pool to 2 hectares under a legally enforceable agreement, or a company representing such a group. All three routes need the same 2 hectares.

The four sizes that matter, in order

And your sector has to qualify too None of it starts until the sector clears three tests: at least 70% of its developable area pooled, those pooled parcels contiguous, and the pooled land touching a road of at least 30 m on one side. Your own paperwork can be perfect and still wait on neighbours who have not joined.
Waiting costs more than joining Land that stays out and comes forward later can still be planned in — but on worse terms. DDA requires such parcels to make at least 45% of land available for city-level infrastructure instead of 40%, and to pay updated external development charges. Five percentage points of your land is the price of hesitating.

Find your zone

Six zones — and one of them is treated differently

Land pooling runs in six planning zones. A second policy, the High Density Corridor, runs 250 metres either side of a new ring road called UER-II, and where it applies it allows double the building rights. The corridor only reaches a zone if the road passes through it. It reaches five. It does not reach Zone J.

K-I West DelhiBaprola · Bakkarwala · Dhoolsiras · Hastsal · Kamruddin Nagar · Mundka · Nilothi · Nangloi Jat · Nawada Majra · Shafipur Ranhola · Tilangapur Kotla FAR 200or 400 in corridor
L Outer south-westAsalatpur Khawad · Chhawla · Daryapur Khurd · Daulatpura · Dhoolsiras · Dichaon Kalan · Dindarpur · Ghewra · Haibatpur · Hasanpur · Jafarpur Kalan · Jhuljhuli · Khaira · Malikpur Zer Najafgarh · Neelwal · Rewla Khanpur · Sarangpur · Surehra · Ujwa FAR 200or 400 in corridor
N North-west DelhiBawana · Bazidpur Thakran · Budhanpur · Chandpur · Jat Khor · Kanjhawala · Katewada · Ladpur · Nangal Thakran · Puath Khurd · Rani Khera · Rasulpur · Salahpur Majra · Sawda · Sultanpur Dabas FAR 200or 400 in corridor
P-II North Delhi / NarelaAkbarpur Majra · Alipur · Bhalswa Dairy · Bijapur · Burari · Gadi Khasro · Ibrahimpur · Jharoda Majra · Kadipur · Kamalpur Majra · Mukhmalpur · Seerapsur · Tikri Khurd FAR 200or 400 in corridor
P-I Narela sub-cityBawana · Tikri Khurd · Holambi Kalan · Holambi Khurd · Shahpur Garhi · Nayabans · Budhpur · Bankner FAR 200or 400 in corridor
Part only. The Master Plan limits pooling in P-I to the unacquired land inside the notified Development Area. If your parcel was already acquired, it is out.
J South DelhiChhattarpur · Mehrauli · Satbari · Devli · Sultanpur and around FAR 200no corridor here
Part only, and no High Density Corridor. UER-II does not pass through Zone J, so the higher FAR 400 route simply is not available. Pooling in J runs on the ordinary framework.
About these village names They come from DDA's own land pooling list, not from the Master Plan. The Master Plan defines pooling by zone and by Development Area notification — it prints no village schedule at all. So treat the names as a way to find yourself on the map, then confirm your exact parcel with DDA. Several villages are only partly included.

The official map — tap any colour

Every square metre of Delhi, coloured by what may be built on it

The Master Plan comes with one official sheet, Map 1, that colours the whole city by permitted land use. It is the document your plot's future is written on, and almost nobody outside the profession has read it.

Tap anywhere on the map and it will tell you what that colour means. Or tap a name in the list underneath to light up only that use across the whole city.

The one to look for is white. On this sheet, white patches inside Delhi are the Land Pooling Areas — deliberately left uncoloured because the use has not been fixed in advance. That is the land this entire page is about.

Tap the map Anywhere on the sheet. The colour under your finger will be named here — what it permits, and the parts of Delhi where you find it.
Tap a name to isolate it · tap again to show everything
Land Use Plan for Delhi, Map 1, published with the MPD-2047 notification. Colours and categories are the plan's own. Letters mark the 17 planning zones, lettered A to P with no zone I.
Why the pooling areas are blank Elsewhere on this sheet the plan fixes the use in advance — yellow for homes, red for shops, purple for industry. Inside a Land Pooling Area it deliberately does not. What gets built there is settled later by the approved scheme, and what each plot may be used for is keyed to the width of the road it faces. Roughly 200 sq km of Delhi is left open this way.

“60:40” — and what it really leaves you

The most quoted number in land pooling, and the most misread

Every explainer says the same thing: you keep 60%, DDA takes 40%. That is correct. It is also not the number you should plan against.

The Master Plan does not stop at 60:40. It splits both halves by what each piece of land is for. Read that table and the portion coming back to you as land you can build homes on is 53%, not 60%.

Where every 100 acres goes
YOU KEEP — up to 60% 53% — land for homes 5% shops2% civic DDA TAKES — at least 40% 35% — roads, parks, services, civic 5% shops the 60 / 40 line
Read across: your 60% is 53% homes + 5% shops + 2% civic. DDA's 40% is 5% shops + 35% roads, parks, utilities and services. Bars drawn to scale.
Plan on 53, not 60 Contribute 10 acres and the residential land coming back is about 5.3 acres, not 6. The other 0.7 is your commercial and civic share — valuable, but a different thing, sold differently. Anyone modelling returns on 60% at a residential rate is roughly 13% optimistic before they begin.

And the roads are not free

There is a second line almost every summary leaves out. The cost of building the roads, drains, water lines and power for the whole scheme is calculated and recovered from the landowners, as Development Charges.

The 60:40 is a settlement about land. It is not free infrastructure on top. The Master Plan does not print the rates — it leaves them to Regulations issued separately. So a returns calculation with no line for Development Charges is an incomplete calculation.

How much can I build?

FAR, in ordinary words

FAR stands for Floor Area Ratio. Forget the phrase and keep the arithmetic: it is how much total floor you may build, as a percentage of your plot.

FAR 200 means twice your plot area in floor space. A 300 square metre plot gets 600 square metres of floor, spread over as many storeys as the height rules allow.

What FAR 200 looks like
Your plot 300 sq m THE LAND × 2 THE BUILDING 600 sq m of floor over whatever number of storeys the height rules allow
Four floors is only an illustration. FAR caps the total floor area, not the number of storeys — how you stack it depends on the height and ground-coverage rules for your plot.
One correction worth carrying You will see FAR 200 quoted with an asterisk — “except utilities and recreation”. There is no such exception in the rule. The clause is a single sentence: the FAR of each plot within a scheme shall be 200, full stop. The confusion is understandable, because parks, roads and civic land genuinely are excluded — but they are excluded by sitting in DDA's 40% share in the first place, so they were never your plots. It is a land-sharing rule, not a deduction from your FAR. Nothing is being taken off your 200.

The corridor, and its price

FAR 400 is real. It is also not for most people.

Along UER-II, the High Density Corridor allows FAR 400 — double. Every article leads with that number. Almost none of them mention what you have to give up to reach it.

Getting to FAR 400
Original plot 8,000 sq m minimum, to qualify WHAT YOU BRING −50% surrendered Final plot 4,000 sq m WHAT YOU KEEP AND ONLY IF at least 75% of the plot sits inside the corridor it is reached from a road at least 18 m wide 20% of the floor area goes to homes under 60 sq m ground coverage stays under 40%, greens over 15% you pay HDC charges, notified separately
Joining the corridor is voluntary. A plot that stays out keeps the ordinary Master Plan rules. Warehousing and logistics along the connecting roads run on a different number again — FAR 120, with ground coverage up to 70%.
This is decided plot by plot, not zone by zone Being in a corridor zone does not give your land FAR 400. The Master Plan says that where another policy applies to a plot, that policy governs it — otherwise land pooling's rules stand. So two neighbours in one scheme can genuinely end up on different FAR: one at 400, the one beside him at 200.

How it actually proceeds

From your field to your plot

1

You register your willingness

Any size of holding may apply — there is no minimum to register. DDA's window for expressing willingness across the 105 villages ran to 28 February 2026, and applications go through DDA's land pooling portal. If your holding is under 2 hectares, this is the point at which to be grouping with neighbours, not after.

2

A scheme forms around you

Neighbouring owners combine into a scheme. Where a group is assembling its own land, the scheme has to reach 20 hectares of continuous land — roughly 50 acres. That floor sits on the scheme, never on you.

3

DDA notifies and plans it

The authority anchors the layout — roads, parks, utilities, schools, social housing. Main roads of 30 m and wider are already drawn on the plan's Map 4, though they shift to suit conditions on the ground.

4

Land comes back, charges go out

You receive your share as serviced, plotted land, and you pay Development Charges toward what servicing the scheme cost. From here your plot follows the scheme's rules — the old zonal land use stands superseded.

Where things actually stand The policy was notified on 11 October 2018, with its operating regulations two weeks later. Sectors have been moving since — Sector 8B in Zone P-II has a published 60:40 land distribution and layout plan, and sectors across Zone L, Zone N and Zone P-II have gone through owner grouping. The 2018 process ran on consortiums of owners; the 2047 Master Plan now lets owners register directly, at any size. If your area is already mid-process, ask DDA which of the two you fall under — it changes who you deal with.
What you may build depends on the road you face Instead of fixing land use in advance, the plan keys what is permitted on a plot — and how intensely — to the width of the road it fronts. Wider road, generally more permitted uses. Two identical plots in one scheme can carry different rights purely because of their frontage.

Five things people get wrong

Each one checked against the plan

Heard“My land is in Zone L, so land pooling applies to it.”
ActuallyThe zone is only the first of three gates. The area must also be notified as a Development Area, and your land must clear the seven carve-outs — Lal Dora, water bodies and unauthorised colonies among them.
Heard“I need at least 20 hectares to take part.”
ActuallyAny size of holding can register — 20 hectares is the minimum size of a scheme, not of your holding. But do not stop there: under 2 hectares and outside a Developer Entity you receive built space, not land. Group with neighbours to clear 2 hectares.
Heard“I get 60% of my land back to build on.”
ActuallyUp to 60% comes back, of which 53% is residential. The rest is your commercial and civic share. Model on 53.
Heard“Government builds the infrastructure for free.”
ActuallyThe scheme's development cost is recovered from landowners as Development Charges. The Master Plan defers the rates to separate Regulations.
Heard“My zone has the corridor, so I get FAR 400.”
ActuallyThe corridor applies plot by plot and joining is voluntary. It needs an original plot of 8,000 sq m, half surrendered, and an 18 m road. Most holdings will sit at FAR 200.

Before you sign anything

Seven questions worth asking first

When your plot comes back, you will need a plan for it

That is the part we do. Tell us the plot size and which way it faces, and we will generate a Vastu-scored concept floor plan you can hold in your hand — about two minutes, free to try.

Concept-grade drawings for planning and discussion. A licensed architect must validate any plan before construction, and we do not advise on land pooling applications — for that, speak to DDA and your own professional.

The short version Being inside a land pooling zone does not, by itself, tell you what you can build. Your village and parcel, whether the area is notified, whether the corridor reaches you, your road access, and the exclusions all sit between the zone map and your answer.