Contract documents are written for people who already read contract documents. Every term below appears somewhere in this register or in the annual reports it is built from, and each one gets a single plain explanation and, where it helps, the Dholera number that goes with it.
This is not a general dictionary of construction. If a word is not used on this site, it is not here.
The words, in alphabetical order
Activation area
The first 22.5 square kilometres of Dholera being built out, out of roughly 920 square kilometres planned. Almost every building in this register sits inside it.
Allotment
Being given the right to use a plot. The reports say 530 acres of industrial land had been allotted by March 2025, without saying who took how much.
Arbitration
A private legal process the two sides agree to use instead of a court. One Dholera contract has been in arbitration since 2021.
Bank guarantee
Money a contractor's bank promises to pay the client if the contractor fails to perform. Encashing it means the client has called that promise in.
Contingent liability
Money a company might have to pay if something goes against it, such as a claim. It is disclosed in the accounts but not counted as a cost until it happens.
Capital work in progress
Construction that has been paid for but is not finished, so it sits on the balance sheet separately from completed assets.
Crore
Ten million rupees. One hundred lakh make one crore. Indian reports use both units, and this site keeps whichever one the source printed.
DICDL
Dholera Industrial City Development Limited, the company that awards every contract here. Owned 51 percent by the Gujarat government through DSIRDA and 49 percent by the central government through NICDIT.
DSIRDA
The Dholera Special Investment Region Development Authority, the state body that governs the region and contributed the land.
E-auction
An online auction for a plot of land. The highest bidder wins and receives a letter of award. The money reported afterwards is the buyer's own investment plan.
EPC
Engineering, procurement and construction. One firm designs the job, buys the materials and builds it for one agreed sum.
Hybrid annuity model
A payment structure where the government pays part of the construction cost up front and the rest in instalments over years while the private firm runs the asset.
Item rate contract
The client lists the work item by item and the firm quotes a rate for each. The final total depends on how much of each item is used.
Lakh
One hundred thousand rupees. The audited accounts print most figures in lakh, so a figure like 6,159.43 lakh means about 61.6 crore.
Letter of award
The document telling a bidder it has won. Its date is often the only date published against an award.
MLD
Million litres per day, the way water and effluent plants are sized. A 50 MLD plant is built to handle fifty million litres every day.
Mobilisation
The gap between being awarded the job and actually starting on site. Across Dholera contracts that has run from 28 days to 105 days.
NICDIT
The National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust, the central government vehicle that holds 49 percent of DICDL.
nProcure
The state procurement portal where bids for Dholera tenders are submitted. Its awarded tender feed returned nothing usable when this site was built.
PPP
Public private partnership. A private firm builds and then runs something for an agreed period, keeping the income, rather than being paid to build it.
Project management consultant
A firm hired to supervise construction on the client's behalf, checking quality and progress. Two are named across this register.
RFQ and RFP
Request for qualification and request for proposal. The first checks whether a firm is capable of the job at all, the second asks it to propose how and for how much.
Rate contract
A standing agreement on prices for repeated small work, so each job does not need its own tender. Dholera has one open for plot boundary fencing.
Upfront lease premium
A one off payment received when land is leased out. It is the line in DICDL revenue where land monetisation appears, and it swings the headline revenue figure hard from year to year.
Three phrases worth being careful with
Project cost is not the same as contract price
A contract price is what a client agreed to pay a named builder. A project cost is what the whole project is expected to cost, which can also cover fees, consultants and contingency. Six Dholera awards print a project cost and only one prints a contract amount. That difference is set out on price or project cost.
Sanctioned is not spent
Rs. 2,784.83 crore of infrastructure projects at Dholera have been sanctioned by the central government. Sanctioned means approved for spending. It says nothing about how much of it has actually been spent, and the report gives no package level breakdown.
Under construction is not on schedule
The annual report describes its eight projects as currently underway. That is a status, not a schedule. Since no completion date is published for any of them, underway cannot be turned into on time or late by anyone. The dates page sets out what can and cannot be measured.
Every definition here is written to match how the term is used in the DICDL annual reports for 2023-24 and 2024-25 and on the DICDL tender page. Where a term is used loosely in the source, that is said rather than tidied.