New Yamuna City (YEIDA City): The Complete Overview

What New Yamuna City actually is

New Yamuna City is not a single township with a fixed boundary — it is the working name for the entire planned-development area of the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA). It is a new planned city initiative by YEIDA and the third in the Gautam Budh Nagar district, following Noida and Greater Noida, situated on a 25,000-hectare expanse along the Yamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh. The name appears interchangeably in official and market use as Yamuna City and YEIDA City.

This city is part of the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) and is being developed on a 25,000-hectare land area along the Yamuna Expressway, designed to complement the real estate development in Noida and Greater Noida. In practice, the region is a mix of notified industrial sectors, residential plot sectors, big single-purpose projects (an international airport, a film city, a Formula 1-grade racing circuit, sports infrastructure), and hundreds of villages that remain under YEIDA's planning jurisdiction but are not yet urbanised.

Who is building it

The UP Government has enacted the UP Industrial Development Act, 1976, to ensure planned development of industrial and allied activities in the state, and NOIDA, Greater NOIDA and YEIDA have been created under this Act for the systematic development of their respective notified areas abutting Delhi, which if not planned, would have been prone to unauthorized urban growth. YEIDA is a Government of Uttar Pradesh undertaking, not a private developer — all land is acquired, planned and allotted by the Authority itself, through plot schemes and infrastructure tenders. The Authority traces back to a notification under the UP Industrial Area Development Act, 1976, issued as the erstwhile Taj Expressway Industrial Development Authority on 24 April 2001.

Official notified area, villages and districts

The YEIDA notified area is large and is planned in two parts. 1,187 villages of Gautam Buddh Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Hathras, Mathura and Agra districts have been notified under YEIDA vide various notifications of the Government of UP, and the notified area covers parts of these six districts. An earlier authority planning document put the figure at 1,149 villages across Gautambudh Nagar, Bulandshahar, Aligarh, Hathras, Mathura and Agra districts, with the YEIDA notified area covering approximately 3,429 sq km falling in six districts, to be developed in two phases.

The area is divided into two parts for planning: Phase 1, consisting of 226 villages in the districts of Gautam Budh Nagar and Bulandshahar. The UP government has approved the YEIDA Master Plan 2041 for this Phase-1 area, including an expansion of about 200 sq km that brings 55 new villages around the upcoming Noida International Airport into the plan, taking the roadmap to a 769 sq km area of 226 villages across Gautam Budh Nagar and Bulandshahr districts.

Separately, the authorities have stated that Yamuna Authority will build new cities in Aligarh and Mathura districts, after the state government approved YEIDA's Phase 2 Master Plan 2031, confirming that two new cities will be established under the Phase 2 plan. A city is to be developed on 11,653.76 hectares in the notified YEIDA area of Mathura district, with the state government planning to promote tourism in the newly established city. The Heritage City and Multi-Modal Logistics Park project in Aligarh district have already been approved as part of this new city.

Why this region exists

YEIDA was set up to plan an area that would otherwise urbanise haphazardly under pressure from Delhi's expansion. Development pressure from nearby areas such as NOIDA, Greater NOIDA, Faridabad, Dadri and Khurja led the Authority to prepare a Master Plan for the region on priority. The Authority's stated objective is to secure the planned development of the industrial development area, optimising present potential, enhancing the investment climate and promoting economic development through a sustainable environment supported by world-class infrastructure.

A second, more specific reason is tourism and access to Agra. Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is located at Agra, about 210 km from Delhi by road, and the UP government has been working to improve NCR connectivity to boost tourist access to Agra. The Yamuna Expressway itself was originally built as this fast link, and YEIDA's notified area grew around it.

Current status, as of July 2026

The single biggest change to the region's status in 2026 is the opening of its anchor project. Noida International Airport at Jewar began commercial flights on 15 June 2026, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's formal inauguration of Phase 1 on 28 March 2026. Officials said the airport's first phase is complete, with a capacity to handle 12 million passengers annually. Three carriers are confirmed for the first phase — IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India Express — with Akasa Air beginning daily flights on 16 June 2026.

On the planning side, the Uttar Pradesh government has approved YEIDA's Master Plan 2041, which is described as recently having received a nod from the state government for implementation. Demand for land has followed: applications for YEIDA's latest residential plot scheme have gone past 1 lakh for under 1,000 plots. The RPS-10 scheme offers 973 residential plots across three size categories, with the lucky draw scheduled for 18 June 2026. The Authority has approved a budget of over Rs 11,000 crore, with around Rs 7,500 crore expected from recovery of dues, indicating continued development momentum in the region.

Not everything is built yet. As of early 2026, access to the airport was still primarily road-based via the Yamuna Expressway, with no metro or rail link operational. No metro, RRTS, or rail link of any kind reached the airport at launch in June 2026, and the Noida Metro Aqua Line extension has a finalised DPR but construction had not started.

Headline connectivity

YEIDA was established in 2001 to drive planned development along the 165-kilometre, six-lane Yamuna Expressway connecting Greater Noida to Agra. The airport itself sits at a road distance of about 72 km from Delhi's IGI Airport, 40 km from Noida, 28 km from Greater Noida, 65 km from Gurugram and 130 km from Agra.

Several new links are under way. Three connectivity projects — a 31.42-km Delhi–Jewar elevated expressway, a Delhi–Jewar RRTS rail corridor targeting roughly a 21-minute travel time, and a new eastern access road — are advancing through approval and construction. The Ghaziabad–Jewar RRTS is being revised to originate from Sarai Kale Khan and targets 2030-31. The Noida Metro Rail Corporation has signed off the DPR for extending the Aqua Line from Sector 142 to the airport with intermediate stations through YEIDA sectors and Jewar town, though construction tendering had not been completed as of May 2026, putting a best-case completion at late 2028. Beyond rail, all major nearby roads and highways — the Yamuna Expressway, Western Peripheral Expressway, Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Delhi–Mumbai Expressway — are being connected to the airport.

Land use, sectors and reported allocation

The Master Plan 2031 envisaged a development concept of an Industrial Eco-City for YEIDA Phase-1, built on principles of a polycentric, green, eco-industrial city, projecting a population of 35 lakh in an urbanisable area of 24,739.01 hectares. This is not a residential-heavy city; it is structured around industry, logistics and economic activity.

Market analyses of the 2041 plan report a broad allocation across use categories — figures that should be treated as indicative pending YEIDA's own published breakdown: the plan is reported to allocate 6,806 hectares for residential development, 8,445 hectares for industrial and mixed-use zones, a 480-hectare CBD, with green belts of 5,544 hectares and transportation infrastructure of 5,900 hectares.

What happens next

Three tracks are running in parallel. First, airport-linked infrastructure: an international flight target is set for around September 2026, alongside the metro and RRTS links described above. Second, the flagship anchor projects: beyond the airport's Phase 1 inauguration, the Film City tender process is live, and land acquisition for the Heritage City near Mathura is in progress. Third, plot allotment: YEIDA also plans to launch schemes for industrial, mixed-use, and institutional land in 2026. A significantly larger scheme targeting the working class and affordable housing segment — a mega 4,000-plot project — is in the planning and land identification phase, though no official launch date has been confirmed.