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Special Investment Region (SIR)
SIR stands for Special Investment Region. Dholera's full legal name is the Dholera Special Investment Region, created under the Gujarat Special Investment Region Act, 2009. It is the statutory container inside which the whole Dholera project is planned and governed.
Last checked 2026-08-11 · every figure below carries its source
What a Special Investment Region is
A Special Investment Region, or SIR, is a large industrial and urban zone notified under a dedicated state law to attract investment and build infrastructure at scale. In Gujarat the enabling statute is the Gujarat Special Investment Region Act, 2009. The SIR framework gives a project its own planning authority, its own development plan and a single set of rules for land, utilities and clearances, rather than leaving development to ordinary municipal processes. Dholera is marketed publicly as Dholera Smart City, but its formal identity is the Dholera Special Investment Region. The planning envelope is about 920 sq km, of which roughly 580 sq km is considered developable and about 422 sq km urban, figures reported by the development authorities. Around a third of the developable land sits in the Coastal Regulation Zone.
Why the SIR label matters
The SIR status is the legal reason Dholera can pool land, sanction Town Planning schemes and offer a single-window approval system. It also sets the boundary of what is genuinely inside the project. A recurring red flag documented in the fact base is agricultural land marketed as being in the SIR without the required Non-Agricultural conversion, or plots far outside the developed Activation Area (the first phase of Dholera to get roads, water, power and drainage) sold as if they were part of the smart city. Understanding that the SIR is a defined statutory area, not a marketing phrase, is the first step to reading any Dholera claim carefully. The Act, the notified boundary and the sanctioned development plan are the documents that define it.