The ground lease model is proving to be a transformative tool for enabling industrial entry in India’s emerging cities, where rising land values and capital constraints have traditionally posed challenges for new and mid-sized enterprises. By allowing businesses to lease land on long-term tenures—typically 30 to 99 years—without outright purchase, this model drastically reduces upfront capital requirements, making it easier for manufacturers, logistics players, and tech-based industries to establish operations in fast-developing regional markets.
Emerging industrial centers such as Hosur, Sanand, Chittoor, Nagpur, and Coimbatore are increasingly adopting this format to attract first-time investors, MSMEs, and international firms seeking cost-effective and scalable industrial footprints. Ground lease offerings are typically bundled with pre-zoned plots, infrastructure provisioning, and regulatory facilitation, including access roads, power, water, and single-window approvals, enabling quicker setup and operational readiness. This approach is especially beneficial for build-to-suit and plug-and-play projects, where tenants can customize facilities while retaining capital for machinery, technology, and workforce development.
For landowners, municipalities, and state industrial development bodies, the ground lease model ensures steady, recurring revenue while maintaining long-term control over strategic land banks. It also supports regional planning objectives by facilitating inclusive industrialization without sacrificing land ownership. As India’s industrial expansion reaches beyond metro boundaries, the ground lease model is lowering entry barriers, democratizing access, and catalyzing sustainable growth across a new generation of industrial cities.
