Opinion | Jewar Airport Puts Noida’s Economic Explosion Well Beyond Scale Of Gurugram’s Success

It is not just a means to create another Gurugram; it is the engine of a much larger and well-planned economic ecosystem which will push Noida’s, Uttar Pradesh’s, and India’s growt

Not so long ago, Noida used to be regarded as the poorer and problematic cousin of Gurgaon, now Gurugram. Despite having a lot more planned infrastructure and wider roads since Mayawati’s days as chief minister, it used to be the wild east of the National Capital Region (NCR) with unchecked crime, thriving sand and liquor mafia, and real estate sharks that routinely defrauded middle-class home buyers.

That first started to change slowly, and now under CM Yogi Adityanath at a breath-taking pace, especially along the Yamuna Expressway. The opening of Phase 1 of the Noida International Airport at Jewar is perhaps the most demonstrable part of that grand transition; a much more planned and multi-layered urban evolution than that of Gurugram 20-25 years ago.

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Unlike earlier infrastructure developments in NCR which spawned residential corridors, Jewar will become the powerful economic gateway for the state and Noida in particular, which has already seen industrial clusters and logistical hubs coming up. Global connectivity through Jewar airport will fire up investment across sectors. The airport will open up industrial development and mass-scale employment for the entire state.

Phase 1 alone is expected to generate over 1 lakh direct jobs and 5–8 lakh indirect jobs in logistics, hospitality, retail, MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul), aerospace, and allied services. Over the next 15-20 years, the airport city is projected to support 10-12 lakh jobs.

During his recent Japan and Singapore trip, Yogi received investment promises of nearly Rs 19,877 crore across data centres and logistics and township projects, with the potential to generate over 20,000 jobs. Between 2020 and 2025, apartment prices in Noida have risen by around 158 per cent, while plot values have surged by over 500 per cent, according to real estate industry figures.

In just the past year, 54 new industrial plots were added and over 700 lease deeds executed.

The airport is expected to add Rs 1-1.5 lakh crore to UP’s GSDP annually once fully operational. It will act as a major catalyst for foreign investment in electronics, defence manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and data centres in the proposed Jewar Airport City, a 25 sq km special economic zone.

Integrated with the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) and Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, Jewar is set to become north India’s largest air-cargo hub.

A tourism boost is in the offing with Jewar poised to dramatically reduce travel time to Agra, Mathura, Vrindavan, Ayodhya, Varanasi, and Lucknow.

An operational Jewar will help decongest the Delhi airport. It will have multimodal connectivity with the Yamuna Expressway, Noida-Greater Noida Metro extension, proposed Jewar Rapid Rail, 594-km Ganga Expressway, and upcoming Delhi-Meerut regional rapid transit system (RRTS).

In short, the Jewar airport is the centrepiece in Yogi Adityanath’s vision to turn Uttar Pradesh into a $1-trillion economy. It is not just a means to create another Gurugram; it is the engine of a much larger and well-planned economic ecosystem which will push Noida’s, Uttar Pradesh’s, and India’s growth.

(Abhijit Majumder is the author of the book ‘India’s New Right’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.)

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