NCR likely to shrink by 24% if Haryana's proposal is accepted

If Haryana’s decision to remove five districts gets approval from the NCR Planning Board, the National Capital Region (NCR) region could reduce by as much as 24 per cent.

Haryana has proposed to remove five districts from the region’s administrative boundary, which includes Karnal, Mahendragarh, Charkhi-Dadri, Jind, and Bhiwani, and three tehsils from Panipat and Rohtak, said a report in a national daily.

Though Haryana’s indicated area in the NCR was 13,413 sq km in the Regional Plan 2021, the real size increased to 25,327 sq km, when extra districts were established by 2018.

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The districts that were added to the NCR region were Mahendragarh, Bhiwani, Charkhi-Dadri, Karnal, and Jind. Similarly, Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in Uttar Pradesh, as well as Bharatpur district in Rajasthan also became part of the region. More districts were added to NCR for “political” reasons rather than for the sake of sound regional planning and growth, said an Economic Times report.

Quoting sources, the report added that the Board would consider two sets of proposed Regional Plan 2041.

One proposal will be done involving the present NCR area, while the other will be based on the reduced areas and one of them will be given the nod by the Board.  The proposed Regional Plan now will concentrate on designing NCR cities with optimal high rise and high density standards.