RIICO industrial plots: leasehold, allotment, and the resale rules

Do you own a RIICO plot, or lease it?

You lease it. Rule 9 of the RIICO Disposal of Land Rules 1979 is explicit: "the lease will be granted for a period of ninety-nine years", commencing from the allotment date, with RIICO as lessor and the allottee as lessee. There is no freehold-conversion provision in the rules — a full-text search returns nothing; ownership and reversion stay with RIICO. So a "RIICO plot in Bhiwadi" is a 99-year leasehold interest, priced and transferred as such. Anyone selling it to you as freehold is misdescribing the asset.

How is a plot allotted?

Two routes. The default is e-auction, at a bid start rate fixed by RIICO's reserve-price committee, where the successful bidder pays 25% up front and the balance per the rules. The second is direct allotment at the reserve rate under the Direct Allotment Policy-2025, aimed at investment-MoU holders (from Rising Rajasthan-2024): a single applicant for an eligible plot gets a Letter of Offer, multiple applicants go to an e-lottery, and the largest plots are decided by RIICO's Infrastructure Development Committee. Applications run through RIICO's portal and the state single-sign-on; the lease deed must then be executed and registered with the Sub-Registrar at the allottee's cost, or it is treated as cancelled.

What must you do after allotment?

Build and produce, on a clock. A RIICO allottee must commence commercial production within about two years where no environmental clearance is needed, or three years where it is, along a milestone ladder from possession — lease agreement and EC application, building-plan and consent-to-establish, EC, plinth, and roof — with a breach at any step giving RIICO the right to cancel. "Utilisation" is defined (broadly, a minimum proportion of the area constructed and of the project investment made), and RIICO may resume unutilised or surplus land on notice, or cancel with its Managing Director's approval. A RIICO plot is an industrial commitment, not a land bank.

Can you resell a RIICO plot — and what does transfer cost?

You can, but only with RIICO's prior permission (Rule 18), only for the same purpose it was allotted for, and against a published fee — and the 99-year lease continues from the original allotment, it does not reset. The transfer fee is a percentage of the prevailing allotment rate, not a flat sum: broadly 0.50% for a utilised industrial or institutional plot, 1.5 times that for a residential plot and 2 times for a commercial one, and 20% of the prevailing rate (or the rate itself, whichever is higher) for a vacant plot — while a transfer to a blood relation is exempt from the fee entirely. A vacant plot may be transferred only after five years from allotment, unless the rules' exceptions apply. We quote no rupee figure, because every one of these is a percentage of a rate that varies by area and date.

What is the Bhiwadi picture?

Bhiwadi is Rajasthan's big RIICO industrial cluster near the Haryana border, and one administrative fact matters for any paperwork: since the 2023 reorganisation, Bhiwadi sits in Khairthal-Tijara district (carved out of Alwar), and RIICO's older contact lists that still say "District Alwar" are stale. The cluster — Bhiwadi phases, Chopanki, Khushkhera, Kaharani (Bhiwadi Extension), Tapukara and more — is run by two in-town RIICO unit offices, and every plot in it is the same 99-year leasehold on the same allotment and transfer rules. We describe the mechanics, not prices: RIICO's current allotted-and-vacant registries and e-auction notices are the live source for what is actually on offer.

Where the authoritative rules live

One sourcing note, because it trips people up: the web host riico.co.in now survives mainly as RIICO's email domain, and the authoritative rule text lives on the government-hosted riico.rajasthan.gov.in (and the RIICO ERP portal for live plot data). Every figure above — the 99-year lease, the allotment routes, the milestone ladder, the Rule 18 transfer fees — is from that official consolidated Disposal of Land Rules 1979 and the Direct Allotment Policy, read directly. Several figures carry recent amendment stamps (the vacant-plot five-year rule changed twice in under a year), so any near-threshold transaction is checked against the current order.