Dholera Smart City is the marketing name for the Dholera Special Investment Region, and its smart features are concentrated in the roughly 22.5 sq km Activation Area. What makes it smart is that it is planned from scratch on empty land, with utilities laid underground, piped services with smart metering, and a central Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) in the ABCD building that monitors water, power, traffic, lighting and surveillance. It is a greenfield build, so the systems are designed together rather than retrofitted into an existing town. Several features are operational in the Activation Area while others remain planned.
Dholera Smart City is the marketing name for the Dholera Special Investment Region, and its smart features are concentrated in the roughly 22.5 sq km Activation Area. What makes it smart is that it is planned from scratch on empty land, with utilities laid underground, piped services with smart metering, and a central Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) in the ABCD building that monitors water, power, traffic, lighting and surveillance. It is a greenfield build, so the systems are designed together rather than retrofitted into an existing town.
Several features are operational in the Activation Area while others remain planned.
Key facts
What it is
Marketing name for Dholera SIR
Smart brain
ICCC in the ABCD building
Utilities
Underground, smart-metered
Type
Greenfield, built from scratch
Where it is real today
~22.5 sq km Activation Area
What makes Dholera a "smart city"? The short answer is that it is being planned from scratch on empty land, with its utilities buried underground and wired into a single control centre, rather than bolted onto an existing town. Dholera Smart City is the marketing name for the Dholera Special Investment Region, and the smart features are concentrated, for now, in the roughly 22.5 sq km Activation Area. This page explains what the smart infrastructure actually consists of, separating what is reported as built from what is still planned.
Dholerapedia is independent and does not sell plots. The features described below come from official DICDL disclosures about the Activation Area. Where something is promotional rather than confirmed, this page flags it.
Smart because it is greenfield
The single most important reason Dholera can be built as a smart city is that it is greenfield, meaning it starts on largely empty coastal land with no existing streets or buildings to work around. That lets planners lay the road grid, the underground service ducts, the drainage and the digital network together, as one designed system. Retrofitting the same systems into a crowded existing city is far harder.
This is why the smart-city story is tied so tightly to the master plan, covered in the Dholera master plan.
The ICCC: the city's brain
At the centre of the smart-city concept is the Integrated Command and Control Centre, or ICCC. It is housed inside the ABCD building, the Administrative cum Business Centre for Dholera, in the Knowledge and IT zone of Town Planning Scheme 2. The ICCC is designed to be the operational brain of the city, pulling in feeds on water, power, street lighting, traffic, surveillance and the environment so the region can be monitored and managed from one place. The building also holds authority offices and a single-window clearance function for investors.
It is reported as structurally complete and operational, though an exact inauguration date is not reliably sourced. See the ABCD building for the full profile.
ABCD building sizing note: the built-up area is reported inconsistently, from about 14,000 sqm in an early Phase-I figure to about 36,000 sqm in a developer's full-scope figure. Dholerapedia flags the discrepancy rather than picking one number.
Underground and smart utilities
The physical smart layer, per DICDL's own disclosures for the Activation Area, is meant to be largely invisible. Instead of overhead cables and roadside pipes, services run in underground ducts, which keeps streets clear and makes maintenance cleaner. Reported features in the Activation Area include:
These figures describe the Activation Area specifically, not the entire 920 sq km region. Chart values are reported infrastructure figures from DICDL disclosures.
What is built versus what is still planned
Honesty about status is part of what makes this reference useful. Several elements are reported as built in the Activation Area, while others are promotional or unconfirmed. The table separates the two.
Feature
Status
Note
ICCC in ABCD building
Reported operational
Exact inauguration date not reliably sourced
Underground power, ICT, gas, water ducts
Reported built (Activation Area)
With smart metering and leak detection
50 MLD water treatment plant and reservoirs
Reported built
Activation Area scope
~72 km internal road network
Reported built
Includes reserved rapid-transit corridor
Common walkable utility tunnel
Planned / promotional
Not officially confirmed
District cooling
Unknown
Status not reliably sourced
How to read smart-city claims
Marketing often describes Dholera's smart features as if they blanket the whole region. In reality they are concentrated in the Activation Area, which is about 22.5 sq km of a roughly 920 sq km planned envelope. That does not make the features unreal; the underground utilities, the water systems and the ICCC are genuine and reported operational.
It does mean a plot far from the Activation Area does not automatically carry them today. If you are weighing a purchase, our page on whether Dholera is safe to invest in explains why proximity to confirmed infrastructure matters more than a regional map.
Bottom line: Dholera is smart because it is designed as a whole from empty land, with buried utilities, smart metering and an ICCC brain in the ABCD building. Those systems are real in the Activation Area and still being extended across the rest of the region.
Frequently asked questions
What makes Dholera a smart city?
It is planned from scratch on empty land, with utilities laid underground, piped services carrying smart meters, and a central Integrated Command and Control Centre in the ABCD building that monitors water, power, traffic, lighting and surveillance. Because it is greenfield, these systems are designed together rather than retrofitted.
What is the ICCC in Dholera?
The Integrated Command and Control Centre is the operational brain of the smart city, housed in the ABCD building in the Knowledge and IT zone. It is designed to monitor and manage water, power, lighting, traffic, surveillance and the environment from one place, and is reported operational.
Are Dholera's smart features actually built?
Several are reported built in the Activation Area, including underground utilities with smart metering, a 50 MLD water treatment plant, about 72 km of internal roads, and the ICCC. Other items like a common utility tunnel or district cooling are planned or unconfirmed.
Does the whole 920 sq km have smart infrastructure?
No. The smart features are concentrated in the roughly 22.5 sq km Activation Area for now. The wider region is planned in phases, so a distant plot does not automatically carry these systems today.
What is the ABCD building?
ABCD stands for Administrative cum Business Centre for Dholera. It houses the ICCC, authority offices and a single-window clearance function, and is reported structurally complete and operational, with an exact inauguration date not reliably sourced.
Why does being greenfield matter?
Building on empty land lets planners lay roads, underground service ducts, drainage and the digital network together as one designed system, which is much harder to do when retrofitting an existing, built-up town.
