On March 18, the Union Cabinet approved the scheme for developing 100 plug-and-play industrial parks across the country over a period of six years from 2026-27 to 2031-32.
According to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) operational guidelines of the scheme, in the first phase, a total of 50 proposals would be selected as per guidelines.
The first phase will comprise two rounds of selection.
“The windows for the first round of selection will open on June 1 and close on July 31, 2026. In the first round, up to 20 proposals may be selected. The windows for the second round of selection will open on August 1 and close on September 30, 2026,” it said.
An applicant whose proposal is not selected in the first round, may also submit with suitable improvements for consideration in the second round, it added.
The objective of the Scheme is to develop investment-ready, world-class industrial infrastructure to enable investors to ground investment with ease, thereby adding to the manufacturing capacity in the country.It added that in non-hilly states, for consideration of an industrial park for selection under the scheme, it must have a minimum 100 acre of contiguous land available for development.
In hilly states, northeast region, union territories and states having population less than 1 crore, such as Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Goa, the minimum area requirement is 25 acre of contiguous land available for development.
“Out of the one hundred industrial parks to be developed, up to twenty industrial parks may have a development area between 500 acre to 1000 acre.
For proposals where the sponsoring agency proposes to develop larger parks in phases, funding will be limited to an upper cap for 1000 acre,” it said.
It added that land shall be provided by the State Government, a Private Developer, jointly by the State Government and a Private Developer, or a Central Public Sector Undertaking.
It also said that the proposal so received shall be evaluated on dimensions such as multi-modal connectivity, and Site suitability; quality of core, value-added and social infrastructure in DPR, industrial ecosystem, and policy enablers.