The Gujarat government has put a hold on its plan to create the Himmatnagar Urban Development Authority (HUDA) following significant resistance from farmers in the Sabarkantha district. The decision to suspend the formation of the authority, which was to encompass 11 villages near Himmatnagar, was announced by Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi late on Wednesday.
Roots of the Protest: Land and Livelihood Concerns
The controversy dates back to November 2023, when the state government first issued a notification for the creation of HUDA. The process moved forward with a draft plan presented in September 2025. However, villagers, organized under the Himmatnagar HUDA Sankalan Samiti, launched a sustained agitation against the move.
Utsav Patel, the convener of the Samiti, explained the core issue to The Indian Express. He stated that farmers feared losing a significant portion of their land without fair compensation once town planning schemes under the urban development authority were implemented. "After formation of an urban development authority, when a town planning scheme is announced, 40 per cent land is taken away from farmers without giving them any compensation. So that was our main issue," Patel said.
A Repeat of History and Regional Realities
This is not the first time the proposal has faced backlash. Patel pointed out that a similar attempt to form HUDA in 2012 was also suspended following an agitation in 2015. He further argued that the urban context of Himmatnagar is fundamentally different from major cities like Ahmedabad or Gandhinagar.
"Our Himmatnagar is a small city like a village. It is not that people settle here after migration because there is no presence of such industries here for opportunity of business and trade," Patel elaborated. The protesters believed that imposing a large-scale urban development scheme on such an area would lead to the economic downfall of the local farming community.
Government Response and Formal Suspension
In response to the growing protests, the state government constituted a four-minister committee to examine the matter. A crucial meeting was held in Gandhinagar on Wednesday, attended by village representatives, three ministers from the committee—Arjun Modhwadia, Rushikesh Patel, and Pradyuman Vaja—and Deputy CM Harsh Sanghavi.
The outcome of this discussion was the formal suspension of the HUDA formation plan. An official release stated, "After carefully listening to the leaders and villagers who had come to make a representation on HUDA, the state government has suspended the decision to form Himmatnagar Urban Development Authority for now."
This move marks a significant victory for the protesting farmers and highlights the ongoing tensions between urban development initiatives and the rights of agricultural communities in peri-urban areas of Gujarat.
