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A ₹20 lakh crore blueprint from the National Capital Region Planning Board aims to ease pressure on Delhi by building entirely new greenfield cities across neighboring states.
The National Capital Region Planning Board has prepared a blueprint under Regional Plan 2041 proposing the development of five to eight new smart greenfield cities across Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan, aimed at reducing pressure on Delhi itself and transforming the wider region into a more connected urban system. The plan carries an estimated investment framework of roughly ₹20 lakh crore and focuses on large-scale urban expansion, high-speed connectivity, and long-term population management.
A central feature of the plan is what planners are calling the "30-minute NCR" -- a goal of connecting major cities across the National Capital Region to Delhi within just half an hour of travel time, using a multi-layered transport system designed to sharply reduce congestion and commute times across the region.
The scale of the challenge driving the plan is significant: projections suggest that by 2030, Delhi-NCR could become the world's most populous urban region, surpassing Tokyo. That trajectory has pushed planners toward a strategy of shifting growth outward to new, purpose-built cities rather than continuing to concentrate development within Delhi's existing boundaries.
The proposed development framework draws inspiration from Maharashtra's Aurangabad Industrial City, a greenfield smart city model that planners hope to replicate across the new NCR cities, rather than designing each new urban center from scratch.
The plan was expected to be placed before authorities for approval, marking one of India's most ambitious regional urban development strategies to date. Its success will depend heavily on execution across multiple state governments, a coordination challenge that has historically slowed even well-designed Indian master plans.