New Agra Urban Centre — YEIDA's Planned City Along the Yamuna Expressway

What Is New Agra Urban Centre?

New Agra Urban Centre is a proposed new city planned to come up along the Yamuna Expressway between Greater Noida and Agra, at the point where the expressway ends, within Agra district's limits.

The Uttar Pradesh government is preparing one of its most ambitious urban development projects, named the New Agra Urban Centre, along the Yamuna Expressway, positioned as a future-ready economic and tourism hub with industrial infrastructure and sustainable urban planning. The project is being planned as part of YEIDA's Master Plan 2041.

Who Is Building It

YEIDA — the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority — is the agency responsible for the project. YEIDA was constituted by the UP government on 24 April 2001, under the UP Industrial Area Development Act, 1976, to implement the Yamuna Expressway and allied urban development between Noida and Agra.

YEIDA's overall notified jurisdiction is far larger than New Agra alone: it covers 1,149 villages across six districts — Gautam Budh Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Hathras, Mathura and Agra — spread over 3,352 sq km. The authority's Master Plan divides this into two phases: Phase I (759 sq km in Gautam Budh Nagar and Bulandshahr, where active land acquisition, allotment and construction such as Noida International Airport and Film City are underway) and Phase II (2,593 sq km across Mathura, Agra, Aligarh and Hathras, currently at the detailed-project-report stage). New Agra Urban Centre is the Agra-district component of Phase II. YEIDA's regional office in Mathura is set to oversee execution of the New Agra project on the ground.

Official Area, Villages and Districts — Figures Have Shifted

The footprint of New Agra Urban Centre has changed across successive planning rounds, and readers should treat the numbers as evolving rather than final:

• November 2023 (initial concept): YEIDA decided to build a new metropolis on 10,500 hectares in Agra, based on a blueprint covering 60 villages of Etmadpur tehsil, Agra, prepared by a US-based consultant. That first survey covered only one side of the expressway, and officials later ordered a fresh survey of both sides because omitting one side risked illegal occupation of land.
• April 2025 (Master Plan version): YEIDA completed a master plan for the New Agra Urban Centre covering 12,200 hectares in 58 villages of Agra district, designed to house 14.6 lakh people and generate 8.5 lakh jobs.
• July 2026 (most recent reporting): Nearly 14,480 hectares spanning 44 villages have been earmarked for the project, making it about half the size of Noida, under YEIDA's Master Plan 2041.

The area lies within Agra district, and specifically within the Etmadpur tehsil belt along the expressway. It sits inside the Taj Trapezium Zone, the environmentally sensitive area around the Taj Mahal, which restricts the kind of industry that can be built there.

Why It Exists

Agra is home to the Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and the UP government has been working to improve NCR connectivity to boost tourism to the city. New Agra is intended to extend the growth already seen along the Yamuna Expressway — so far concentrated only in Gautam Budh Nagar district, home to Noida International Airport and the proposed Film City — down to the Agra end of the corridor.

Because the site falls in the Taj Trapezium Zone, the project is explicitly built around decongesting historic Agra while keeping industry clean: only white and green category, non-polluting industries will be allowed, with a focus on tourism, IT, manufacturing, handicrafts, food processing, textiles and sports goods.

Current Status (as of July 2026)

New Agra Urban Centre is still in the planning stage. A master plan was completed and was due to go before YEIDA's board for approval, after which the project was to commence. A private consulting firm has been commissioned to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR); once the DPR is finalised, the next steps are zonal planning and land acquisition.

YEIDA officials have indicated that land acquisition will be expedited by allowing farmers to sell land voluntarily through the registry process, rather than going through the lengthier procedure under the Land Acquisition Act of 2013. Separately, the authority ordered its master-plan consultant to re-survey villages on both sides of the expressway (an earlier survey was heavily weighted toward Hathras district) and to prioritise verification of Agra's notified villages, with the resulting draft to be folded into Master Plan 2041 and sent to the state government.

No source found confirms an actual construction start date, RERA registration, or completed land acquisition for New Agra Urban Centre as of this writing. It should not be confused with Greater Agra, a separate, smaller project of the Agra Development Authority spanning 449 hectares across 10 townships, offering plots to nearly 30,000 families, with bookings for two townships open via the Janhit Portal from 29 June to 29 July 2026.

Planned Land Use (April 2025 Master Plan Version)

The April 2025 version of the master plan — covering 12,200 hectares — set out the following zoning, following extensive surveys and public consultations:

• Residential: 2,501 hectares (27.7% of the total area), with green spaces and walking lanes.
• Industrial: 1,813 hectares (20.11%), restricted to non-polluting industries such as IT, ITES, manufacturing and agriculture-based units.
• Mixed-use: 447 hectares combining residential, commercial and entertainment facilities.
• Business zone: 340 hectares of retail hubs, office space and commercial centres.
• Tourism and entertainment: 640 hectares near the Yamuna River, including theme parks, hotels, resorts, museums and cultural centres.
• Yamuna buffer zone: 823 hectares.
• Green spaces: 485 hectares acting as the city's ecological lungs.
• Forest and agricultural land preserved: 434 hectares.
• Education and healthcare infrastructure: 330 hectares.

The plan draws inspiration from Chandigarh's sector model, with roads and green belts integrated alongside dedicated pedestrian pathways, and each planning sector reportedly sized at 800 metres by 1,200 metres.

Headline Connectivity

New Agra's core connectivity asset is the Yamuna Expressway itself, plus proximity to the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor. The site is roughly 120 km from Noida International Airport (Jewar), and planners have floated high-speed rail connectivity between the two nodes, including references to a rapid-rail (Namo Bharat/RRTS-style) line running roughly 130 km along the expressway corridor.

A dedicated cargo corridor linking Agra to Jewar Airport via key routes is planned to move goods without adding pressure to road traffic, with the intent of integrating rail, road and air transport to support industrial growth. On the utilities side, the city is expected to need around 375 MLD of water, drawn from the Yamuna River, the Lower Ganga Canal, and rainwater harvesting. For context on the region's existing road links, Agra is presently about 210 km from Delhi by road, a distance the Yamuna Expressway was built to shorten.

What Happens Next

The immediate milestones to watch are: finalisation of the Detailed Project Report; YEIDA board approval of the master plan; the completion of a re-verified village survey covering both sides of the expressway; formal notification of the villages and area under Master Plan 2041; and the start of voluntary land purchases from farmers via the registry route. YEIDA is also working on parallel Phase II projects for Agra district, including a heritage city and logistics park, as detailed project reports for those developments are prepared alongside New Agra's own DPR.

Given how much the area and village count have moved between 2023, 2025 and 2026 reports, prospective investors and residents should treat any single figure as provisional until an official, dated YEIDA notification is issued.