Desk note · 2 Oct 2026 · 8 min
Steal the lesson. Leave the crore-an-acre headline.
Six months of GMADA, read for someone who might actually buy
For anyone searching property in Mohali, flats in Aerocity Mohali, plots in Aerocity Mohali.
From the March baseline through the August ₹5,391 crore night, to the September investigation notes. What changed for a plot, a flat or an SCO — and what did not.
Today is 2 October 2026. This note closes the six-month tape this desk has been keeping, from early April through this week. One auction sits just outside the window and still runs through every later story: on 7 March, The Tribune reported GMADA had sold 37 of 42 sites for ₹3,136.97 crore, about 55 percent over a combined reserve of ₹2,018.84 crore.
The centre of the tape is August. Bidding on the second big round ran from 20 July to 19 August. Hindustan Times reported the result as 27 properties sold for ₹5,391 crore against a combined reserve near ₹3,872 crore. The Tribune’s figure for the 27.78-acre mixed-use site in Sector 62 is ₹1,742.31 crore, against a reserve of ₹1,214.16 crore. That parcel had found nobody in March.
What a normal buyer should steal from a crore-an-acre night
- SCO heat is real and local. Sector 69 shops of about 101 sq m were reported at ₹7.6–7.7 crore against a ₹3.03 crore reserve. A corner SCO in Sector 53 did ₹6.02 crore against ₹2.97 crore. That is a commercial bid, not your house.
- A corner in Sector 69 drew 254 bids and finished near three times a ₹3 crore reserve, according to Hindustan Times. Small lots, many bidders. That is the retail auction.
- Hospital sites in Aerocity cleared far over reserve in both rounds. Interesting if you own land beside them. Irrelevant as a per-sq-ft input for a 3 BHK.
- IT industrial plots in Sector 101 Alpha, back in March, fetched nearly three times their combined reserve. Again: use, not a flat.
September is the awkward chapter. India Today and then Swarajya reported that the Enforcement Directorate was looking at how GMADA reserves and master-plan changes were made, including a claim of a very large notional loss and questions around Aerotropolis and Eco City delays. On 25 September The Tribune said the Sector 87 award announcement — 196.44 acres — was postponed with no new date. Separately, on 29 September, Hindustan Times reported a Punjab RERA order restoring one buyer’s flat at Sushma Valencia in Zirakpur and awarding delay interest. Allegations and one order are not a price list. They are a reason to buy off an allotment letter and a RERA filing, not off a forwarded voice note.
If you are choosing this month: Aerocity when you need a street that exists, Aerotropolis only with a pocket and a long horizon, IT City when the job is the point, a numbered phase when you want Chandigarh-side life, and a new sector only after the number is specific. The form on this page is how you put a budget next to one of those sentences.