Namo Cities (NCR Regional Plan 2041): Connectivity — Airports, Expressways, Rail and RRTS Status

Where things stand (July 2026)

The Namo Cities concept was announced on 16 June 2026 after the 42nd board meeting of the National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB), chaired by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal. The proposal was announced on 16 June 2026 after the 42nd board meeting of the NCR Planning Board, which functions under the National Capital Region Planning Board Act, 1985. One Namo City is planned in each of the four NCR participating states: Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan, developed as mixed-use Transit-Oriented Developments at selected existing and proposed stations on the Namo Bharat Regional Rapid Transit System lines.

State governments will submit proposals, and the final locations will be selected through a competitive challenge-based process. Each state will have to submit three plans for three identified cities, out of which one will be eligible for selection. The locations of the proposed Namo cities are yet to be finalised — a committee has been constituted for the purpose and participating states have been asked to submit their suggestions. A Tribune report on the same meeting noted a panel is expected to decide locations by August 15.

Candidate areas named so far: Uttar Pradesh has suggested Jewar, Dadri, Khurja, Bulandshahr, and Noida as possible locations, while Rajasthan is examining areas around Alwar and Bharatpur for the proposed city. Delhi and Haryana had not named specific sites in coverage available as of this writing, though Haryana officials pointed to growth corridors such as Sonipat and Panipat as areas likely to benefit. Because no site is locked in, all connectivity below is organised by corridor/candidate-area rather than by a confirmed city footprint.

Airports

Indira Gandhi International Airport (Delhi) remains the region's primary hub and reference point for the NCR's "dual-airport" system.

Noida International Airport (Jewar), IATA: DXN — the airport most directly tied to UP's candidate Namo City sites (Jewar, Dadri, Bulandshahr). Noida International Airport is an international airport at Jewar in the Gautam Buddh Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh, serving the National Capital Region and western Uttar Pradesh. In its first phase the airport has one runway and one passenger terminal with a capacity of 12 million passengers annually, rising to up to 30 million in later years. It was inaugurated by the Prime Minister on 28 March 2026, and commercial domestic flights began through phased rollouts, with The Hindu reporting operations had started with a Lucknow flight by 15 June 2026. Commercial operations opened on 15 June 2026 with IndiGo as inaugural carrier on 5 routes, with Phase 1 capacity of 12 MPPA scaling to 70 MPPA by 2040. International flights were separately projected for around September 2026 by aviation trackers. As of launch, there is no metro, no RRTS, and no international flights at launch — ground access runs entirely on road.

Ground access under construction/proposed: In March 2026 the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the revised cost estimate for the 31.42 km Ballabhgarh–Jewar corridor, of which about 11 km is to be developed as elevated highway, which would improve direct connectivity from South Delhi, Faridabad and Gurugram to the airport and intersect the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, the Yamuna Expressway and the Dedicated Freight Corridor. In October 2025, YEIDA had approved a ₹1,700 crore, 25 km eastern-side access road from Greater Noida West near Char Murti to the airport. Metro is only proposed: a Greater Noida–Noida Airport Metro extension from the existing Aqua Line is planned, and a Ballabhgarh–Noida Airport Metro extension from the Delhi Metro Violet Line via Palwal is proposed.

Namo Bharat / RRTS corridors

The RRTS ('Namo Bharat') network is the organising spine for all four Namo Cities, since each is meant to sit at an RRTS station.

All Phase-1 lines converge at one interchange: to provide seamless movement to commuters, the three Namo Bharat corridors of phase-1 — Delhi–Ghaziabad–Meerut, Delhi–Panipat–Karnal and Delhi–Gurugram–SNB — will be interoperable and converge at Sarai Kale Khan station in Delhi. Design speed across the network is 160 kmph with trains every 15 minutes to start with.

Expressways and highways

The candidate UP sites (Jewar, Dadri, Khurja, Bulandshahr, Noida) sit on or near an already-dense expressway grid: the operational Yamuna Expressway (Greater Noida–Agra), the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, and the under-construction airport-linked roads described above. A 31-km Jewar–Faridabad Expressway is planned to directly connect Noida International Airport to Faridabad (Ballabhgarh) in Haryana — this is the same corridor CCEA cleared in March 2026 (see Airports section), with reports suggesting completion around end-2026 or early-2027.

For the Rajasthan candidate area (Alwar/Bharatpur), the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway and NH-48 corridor already run through the Alwar–Bharatpur belt, ahead of any RRTS extension. For the Haryana growth belt (Sonipat–Panipat–Karnal), NH-44 (the old GT Road) and the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (Western Peripheral) Expressway provide the existing road backbone that the Delhi–Panipat–Karnal RRTS is being built alongside.

Rail and dedicated freight corridors

Beyond RRTS, conventional rail and freight infrastructure matters most for the UP candidate belt. A logistics and transport hub is being developed at Bodaki, near Dadri, to serve as a multi-modal logistics hub — Dadri sits directly on the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), which also threads through the Khurja–Bulandshahr belt named by UP as a Namo City candidate area. The approved Ballabhgarh–Jewar road corridor is designed to intersect the Dedicated Freight Corridor as well as the Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Yamuna Expressway, underlining how freight, road and airport infrastructure are being planned to converge in this zone.

Metro and last-mile links

Metro connectivity to the candidate zones is mostly extension-stage rather than built. A Greater Noida–Noida Airport Metro extension from the existing Noida Aqua Line is planned, and a Ballabhgarh–Noida Airport Metro extension from the Delhi Metro Violet Line via Palwal is proposed. No metro line currently reaches Jewar, Dadri, Khurja, Bulandshahr, Alwar or Bharatpur; residents and workers in these areas depend on road and, where built, RRTS for now.

The '30-minute NCR' framing

Officials have tied the Namo Cities to a wider connectivity target in the draft Regional Plan 2041. The draft plan advances the concept of a "30-minute NCR", under which travel time between major cities in the region would be reduced to around 30 minutes through a network of high-speed rail systems, aiming for a more integrated regional economy connected through efficient transit infrastructure. Under this concept, travel time between major cities in the region, including Delhi, is targeted at around 30 minutes. This target depends on the RRTS corridors above moving from DPR/construction stage to full operation — none of the non-Meerut corridors were complete as of mid-2026.