Academic experience · Research & Analysis
Halol–Savli Special Investment Region
Industrial suitability assessment and boundary re-delineation of a notified SIR, using GIS, remote sensing and MCDA.
Halol–Savli, Gujarat · Jan 2025 – May 2025
Context
A Special Investment Region is notified before it is fully analysed. The boundary gets drawn to a policy intent, and only afterwards does anyone test whether the land inside it is actually suitable for the industrial development it has been designated for. Halol–Savli in Gujarat is a notified SIR of exactly this kind.
The question worth asking of any notified region is therefore uncomfortable and specific: does the boundary match the suitability?
Mandate
Directed Research Project at the Centre for Urban Planning & Policy, CRDF, CEPT University. I assessed the industrial development suitability of the notified Halol–Savli SIR across the full notified boundary, and re-delineated that boundary on the evidence.
Approach
Assessing the whole notified boundary rather than a sample was a deliberate choice — a suitability finding that only covers part of a region cannot support a boundary argument about the region.
Re-delineation combined spatial and non-spatial data analysis with scenario building, then tested the result against the agencies that hold the ground truth. I consulted GIDC, which holds the industrial development mandate in Gujarat, and MoEFCC on the environmental constraints, alongside other government agencies.
Scenario building mattered because a single "optimal" boundary is a weak recommendation. Alternatives that trade off industrial capacity against environmental constraint are what let a decision-maker actually choose.
Method & Tools
The analytical spine was multi-criteria decision analysis over GIS and remote sensing data — the standard method for suitability work of this kind, and appropriate here because industrial suitability is genuinely multi-criteria: it is not reducible to any single factor, and the criteria pull against each other.
Remote sensing established existing land cover and change over the notified area. Spatial analysis in ArcGIS and QGIS, with GeoDa for the spatial-statistical component, produced the suitability surface. Non-spatial data and agency consultation supplied the constraints that no raster carries.
Outcome
A suitability assessment across the full notified SIR, and a re-delineated boundary supported by combined spatial and non-spatial evidence, scenario analysis, and consultation with GIDC, MoEFCC and other government agencies.