Gelephu Airport, one of only four airports in Bhutan, is a domestic airport located in the southern Himalayan foothills, close to the Indian border. In August 2023, as formulation of the master plan for expansion of Gelephu Airport neared completion and groundwork preparations began, there was growing speculation among landowners with properties in the proposed site regarding replacement land and compensation. Acquisition of land was to be determined by the government. The groundbreaking ceremony for Gelephu International Airport took place on 23rd December 2023. Satelite imagery dated 1st January 2024 reveals a large area of low-lying scrub land has been cleared for the airport expansion.

Expansion of Gelephu Airport is a key component of an even larger megaproject, a new city, and some residents are concered about losing land to the project. On 15^th December 2023 Forbes reported that King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck would be announcing development of a new ‘megacity’ in Gelephu, called Bhutan Mindfulness City, on Bhutan’s National Day, the 17th December. Initially there were plans for the announcement to take place in Gelephu, but the town, with just 10,000 residents, lacked the requisite infrastructure such as accommodation for international guests so the event was relocated to the capital city, Thimpu. Ahead of the official announcement the article cautioned that the new city project might be met with ‘strong opposition from Bhutan’s nearly 800,000 citizens’ and that ‘fears of government land grabs and the displacement of farmers in Gelephu have already taken root, according to several Bhutanese residents’. Sources with knowledge of Mindfulness City said the King was ‘trying to avoid the preception that families will be forcibly transferred to make way for the project’.

Mindfulness City was indeed the focus of the King’s 116th National Day address. The Bhutanese reported the King’s description of the new city, explaining that it will cover 1,000 square kilometres, about 2.5% of Bhutan’s total land area. Major public investment in roads, bridges and airports is planned, with an inflow of foreign investment anticipated for construction of offices, residencies, schools, hospitals, shops, hotels and restaurants. The new city was also referred to as Gelephu Special Administrative Region (SAR), an ‘economic hub’ that will have ‘autonomy to formulate laws and policies’. Ten of the twelve gewogs (groups of villages) in the Sarpang Dzongkhag (District) – Tareythang, Umling, Chhuzagang, Serzhong, Gelephu, Samtenling, Dekiling, Shompangkha, Gakiling, and Singye – were designated for the Gelephu Mindfulness City project. Kuensel Online reported that residents and landlords were ‘excited about the the upcoming development initiative’, attributing some landlords’ anxiety and fear of losing all of their land to the project to ‘lack of awareness regarding private properties’. There was reassurance of compensation following international practices and provision of replacement land in the city area. It appeared that acquisition of private land would be limited to areas allocated for road and airport construction.

Danish architecture firm BIG, known as a masterplanner for other megaprojects such as Neom, a glass-walled linear city in Saudi Arabia, duly unveiled its masterplan for Mindfulness City, including an international airport. Connectivity was a recurring theme of BIG founder Bjarke Ingels’ description of the new city; he said “Gelephu becomes a land of bridges, connecting nature and people, past and future, local and global”. Apparently, the project will ‘be shaped by 35 rivers and streams that run through the site’. Neighbourhoods will be connected by several ‘inhabitable bridges’ hosting facilities including a university, a healthcare centre and a spiritual centre. Connectivity claims extended to the airport, its timber terminal to act as a bridge. But its runway, crossing over several rivers, while facilitating connectivity for global air travellers, will cause major disruption to hydrological systems. And how does a new city highly dependent on fossil-fuel dependent international air travel square with the Gelephu Mindfulness City website claim of ‘Sustainability as a carbon negative country’? Buildings will incorporate local materials and be ‘informed by Bhutanese architecture‘. But will techniques and structures resonating with local cultural identity be integral to the function of new buildings, or merely aesthetically pleasing adornments? Perhaps the most striking showpiece feature of Mindulness City is the plan for a hydro-electric dam containing a temple. Will the new city be, as Ingels said, “founded on Bhutanese nature and culture”, or merely garnished with it?

A 6th January 2024 Kuensel Online article stated that that Gelephu Mindfulness City would commence with expansion of Gelephu Airport and landowners with land in the area earmarked for the airport had been given replacement land or compensation. Landlords confused about the future of their holdings had been told that they had ‘nothing to worry about’ as the project would include everyone and leave nobody behind, indeed ‘the entire Bhutanese citizenry would be part of the historic project’. This claim of inclusivity is at odds with the Gelephu Mindfulness City website promotion of new city aiming to ‘attract global top talents who are global and creative’ and ‘serve as a hub of global top minds’, i.e. for an international elite. By February 2024 six JCBs had cleared about 1,800 acres of land, working towards the goal of clearing 2,500 acres. Just south of the airport, a dry port was under construction. After considering three models for the airport expansion officials had selected the Asian Development Bank (ADB) masterplan. A new runway next to the existing runway will be 3km in length; possible extension of the runway to 3.5km to accommodate the Airbus A380 would cross over two rivers. Building a new runway will allow continuation of airport operations using the existing runway, enabling visitors involved in the development of Mindfulness City to fly in and out. The initial cost estimate of the ADB masterplan was Nu 8 billion (USD96 million) but a more recent estimate by the Airport Authority of India indicated a far higher figure, possibly as high as Nu 20 billion (USD240 million).