GMADA GPR Survey for New Sectors, Aerocity and IT City

What does GMADA plan and build, and where does a GMADA utility survey fit?

The Greater Mohali Area Development Authority develops the region around SAS Nagar: newer Mohali sectors, Aerocity, IT City, New Chandigarh and the belts around Kharar, Zirakpur and Dera Bassi. A GMADA utility survey maps the services already in that ground before roads, trunk lines or buildings are designed.

GMADA was formed in 2006 under the Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act, 1995, and works from PUDA Bhawan in Sector 62, Mohali. Its construction projects are whole sectors with roads, supply and sewer networks, storm drainage and power corridors laid out together. Designed from scratch, they invite the belief that the ground below is empty. It rarely is.

Why is greenfield land not empty underground?

Land acquired for a sector carries village supply lines, irrigation pipes, power cables, fibre along district roads and old tube-well casings. Panchayats, farmers, PSPCL and telecom operators laid these over many years, and almost none appear on the layout plan.

The problem grows at the edges. A new sector road meets a village road or highway, or a trunk sewer crosses village lanes on its way to a treatment plant.

• Village mains and private connections across fields.
• Shallow irrigation pipes and tube-well feeders.
• Overhead lines undergrounded in places without record.
• Fibre along district roads from several operators.

Which work comes up in Aerocity, IT City and New Chandigarh?

Each township throws up a different mix: airport-side roads and services in Aerocity, data and power corridors in IT City, and large institutional campuses in New Chandigarh.

Aerocity lies near the international airport, and its roads carry heavy cable and supply corridors beside commercial plots. IT City needs reliable power and fibre, so ducts are dense and recent. New Chandigarh, around Mullanpur, includes Medicity, home of the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital, and Ecocity housing, linking new networks to older roads towards the hills. Each asks what crosses the alignment, at what depth, and with what confidence.

How do you prevent cable strikes on fast-growing roads?

By tracing every cable before the road is widened, as growth roads change faster than records. Cables at the old carriageway edge end up under the new one, and feeders to new towers are added constantly. Our page on underground cable detection explains the locator and GPR methods we combine. On GMADA roads we trace the full width, including the verge where the next widening will go.

What goes into a tender or DPR survey for GMADA works?

A drawing every bidder can price from: detected services, depth bands, a conflict list and a quality level for each record. Chainages follow the authority's design drawing, chambers and poles are tied in, and lines needing trial pits are flagged. Method choices for tricity ground are covered in a separate article (see: utility survey guide for Chandigarh).

Timing matters too. The best moment is after the layout is fixed but before services design, so new mains route around existing utility lines. A shorter visit before construction catches anything laid since. Both visits can sit in one order at the same rate, which helps a programme cross a discount threshold.

GMADA ground is tricity Shivalik outwash of gravel, cobbles and boulders, finer towards the plains. Ground penetrating radar, a geophysical tool, sees those cobbles as reflected signals much like small buried objects. To see GPR survey in Chandigarh notes on depth range in this ground, use our city page.

Where does GMADA land meet other jurisdictions?

Along the Chandigarh boundary, along national highways and wherever a finished sector has passed to a municipal body. A route that leaves GMADA land may enter a Chandigarh arterial road, which is an Administration matter; there is more about Chandigarh Administration Engineering Dept works on that page. We split drawings at every boundary so each permission file stands alone.

GMADA utility survey at a glance – by area

If part of your route enters the city, read our questions to ask before an MC Chandigarh utility survey.

Township networks built in phases

In Aerocity and IT City, roads, sewers and supply lines go in phase by phase, each contractor working from the township layout. We set out road centre lines and service corridors from the GMADA layout with a total station on DGPS control. Once a phase is done, we return to fix as-built positions. Radar scans of earlier stretches slot into the same grid. Over several phases the authority gains one connected record of the buried utilities under the township, useful when the next package goes to tender. More on DGPS for township works and setting out service corridors.

What does a GMADA survey cost, and how do large-order discounts work?

The base rate is ₹24 per metre for a plan survey and ₹32 per metre with an L-section. The minimum order in this region is ₹1,00,000, and GST is extra. Township programmes run long, so the whole-order discount often matters: 25% off above 100 km, 40% above 500 km and 50% above 1,000 km. Field work begins at once or within 1 working day.

Take a programme of 120 km of sector roads at the standard rate. It crosses the 100 km mark, so the rate drops by 25% to ₹18 per metre across the whole order: 1,20,000 m × ₹18 = ₹21,60,000 plus GST. A single 4 km trunk sewer, by contrast, is 4,000 m × ₹24 = ₹96,000, so the ₹1,00,000 minimum applies. All rates are on the GPR price list; to ask for a rate for Chandigarh and Mohali township work, send us the layout.

GMADA has given Mezux Touch work in its own name, and the township builders, design consultants and power and water utilities in its sectors commission surveys from us too. Each ground penetrating radar survey is done by Mezux staff on radars the firm owns, and no work is passed on. For GMADA utility mapping, send the township layout.

Frequently asked questions

Do GMADA roads pass to the municipal corporation?

As sectors are completed, maintenance often passes to the local municipal body. Handover differs by sector, so we confirm the owner for each stretch.

Can you survey before the road is built?

Yes. On open land we scan along the proposed alignment or on a grid across the plot, using the design drawing to set out the data collection.

Which areas around Mohali do you cover?

The whole tricity and the surrounding belts; see survey coverage in Chandigarh for details.

Will you find old tube-well casings?

Steel casings show clearly on GPR and on a metal detector, and we mark them because they often sit in the way of new foundations.

Do you dig trial pits?

Pits are opened by hand at agreed points where the design depends on an exact depth; the utility maps show which records were exposed.

How soon can a crew start in Mohali?

An engineer resident in Mohali can begin at once, a business day later at most. Longer programmes book field days as a block, and travel charges, where relevant, appear as a quote line.

Written by Saniya Parveen · Technically reviewed by Rahul Rai · Updated 8 November 2026