LUDHIANA: The Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) is facing a critical stagnation in urban development, having failed to launch a single new affordable housing scheme for city residents in almost two decades.
The trust, once the primary architect of Ludhiana‘s residential landscape, has largely shifted its focus to minor development works within municipal corporation (MC) jurisdictions. With the long-delayed Atal Apartment project nearing its Dec 2026 completion, officials warn that the agency may soon have no active projects remaining. The lack of government-backed alternatives is increasingly forcing residents to choose between expensive private developers or unregulated, illegal colonies.
Two decades of inaction
The LIT’s golden era of planning appears to be a distant memory. While the trust successfully approved 31 projects between 1961 and 2006, the momentum has since evaporated. The most recent major initiative, Sukhdev Enclave on Hambran Road, was planned in 2006 but never reached full implementation. Prior to that, the Atal Apartment Scheme was approved in 2000. It has taken a quarter-century to bring these flats toward completion in Karnail Singh Nagar.
Signalling a decline in operational scope, the LIT recently transferred the maintenance of five major colonies to the Municipal Corporation.
Failed expansion and ‘buried files’
Attempts to break the stalemate have repeatedly faltered. A proposed plan for the Lohara area, intended to utilise a land-pooling policy with local farmers, reportedly stalled during the negotiation phase. Despite initial interest from landholders, the project remains “buried in files”. LIT’s chairman, Tarsem Bhinder, acknowledged the struggle to innovate. “Work was done to develop a new plan, but it was not very successful,” Bhinder said, adding that the trust intends to pursue new schemes only after the Atal Apartment project is finalised.
