Haryana's Dashagram Plan and the Panchgram Revival Along KMP

Haryana's real estate and industrial planning map has quietly been redrawn twice in the past two years, and both changes converge on the same 135-km stretch of tarmac: the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway. First came Dashagram, the state's plan to build 10 integrated industrial townships. Now, the NCR Draft Regional Plan 2041 has pulled the older, once-shelved Panchgram project back into the conversation, and the two initiatives are increasingly being read together as a single growth story for the KMP belt.

Panchgram was the original idea. The Haryana Cabinet under then Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar approved the Panchgram Development Bill in 2018, envisioning five new cities across eight districts — Sonepat, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Gurugram, Rewari, Mewat, Faridabad and Palwal. The concept was to develop industrial townships and urban centres over roughly 2.5 lakh hectares, spreading 2 to 6 km on either side of the KMP loop, under a dedicated Panchgram Development Authority. It was an ambitious plan, but the execution stalled almost immediately. The project remained stuck for years because of land acquisition hurdles and administrative delays, and when the NCR-district sites failed feasibility tests, the state government shelved the original plan and pivoted to a broader idea.

That pivot became Dashagram — an array of 10 industrial towns spread across the state rather than concentrated only in the NCR periphery. The government has identified strategic zones along major expressways and highways, including locations such as New Gurugram, Hisar, Sirsa, Greater Faridabad, Bhiwani, Narnaul, Jind, Kaithal and Ambala, with three zones to be developed on a pilot basis first. Officials have indicated the corridors under consideration include the Delhi-Katra National Expressway 5, the Narnaul-Ambala Expressway 152D and the proposed Dabwali-Panipat Highway, chosen specifically because connectivity at highway junctions is seen as critical to industrial success.

The twist came in mid-2026, when the NCR Draft Regional Plan 2041 designated the KMP and Eastern Peripheral Expressway belt as the 'Golden Ring of Opportunity' — the highest-intensity development zone in the entire National Capital Region. Under this framework, the state has again proposed developing five greenfield townships, or Panchgrams, across nearly 2.5 lakh hectares, with development planned 2 to 6 km on both sides of the expressway, to be governed by a dedicated Panchgram Development Authority. The plan also calls for integrating the Manesar-Bawal Investment Region, a DMIC-linked industrial hub, into state-level planning, and lays out Multimodal Transport Stations — including one at Panchgaon Chowk in Manesar that will link the Delhi-Alwar RRTS, the Gurugram-Manesar Metro and the Jhajjar-Palwal rail line.

Not everyone is convinced the revival will move smoothly. Gurugram MP and Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh has flagged a basic but critical issue: water. Reviewing civic infrastructure in Gurugram, he directed officials to identify a sustainable water source before advancing the project, pointing to the fact that southern Haryana's groundwater is already severely over-exploited and cities like Gurugram face recurring shortages. Industry observers echo the caution, noting that unresolved civic issues and political back-and-forth could dent investor confidence at a time when NCR is competing hard for large-scale capital.

The scale of ambition attached to this corridor is still substantial. Officials estimate that meeting the housing, transport and civic infrastructure demand across NCR could require investments of around Rs 20 lakh crore, and the plan explicitly calls for new settlements to carry modern smart civic amenities on the lines of AURIC City, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor's flagship smart city. Separately, Haryana's Industries Minister has spoken of developing the KMP corridor on a 'Singapore model' of urbanisation, with three of the ten Dashagram townships specifically anchored around the NCR using KMP as a focal point.

For homebuyers and investors, the practical takeaway is this: the KMP corridor — spanning Gurugram, Manesar, Sonepat, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Rewari, Faridabad and Palwal — is now the subject of two overlapping state plans rather than one abandoned one. That doesn't guarantee immediate execution; the same land acquisition and infrastructure bottlenecks that stalled the original Panchgram scheme remain live risks, and the water question raised by Rao Inderjit Singh is unresolved. But the renewed policy attention, the MMTS and metro linkages under discussion, and the 'Golden Ring of Opportunity' tag in the Draft Regional Plan 2041 all point to KMP-adjacent micro-markets in Gurugram and Manesar retaining relevance for both residential and commercial real estate demand over the coming years.