The roads that move money, and the ones that do not yet

The Dwarka Expressway is the corridor most often cited to prove that roads create value, and for once the citation holds up. ANAROCK's residential capital values series for the micro market runs from an average of Rs 5,359 per sq ft in 2019 to over Rs 9,600 in the first half of 2024, roughly 79 per cent, with appreciation of 95 to 105 per cent over the full seven to eight year period. That is a named series with a named publisher covering a defined micro market. Most corridor appreciation claims you will be shown have none of those three properties.

The road itself: 27.6 km in total, Rs 7,500 crore, sixteen lanes counting the elevated carriageway and service roads. The 18.9 km Haryana section was inaugurated in March 2024 and the 10.1 km Delhi section, at about Rs 5,360 crore, on 17 August 2025. Tolling began on 9 November 2025 at the new Bijwasan plaza. Opening car rates were Rs 220 one way at Bijwasan and Rs 95 at Kherki Daula, revised on 1 April 2026 to Rs 225 and Rs 100 under the annual wholesale price index linked revision. A local monthly pass at Rs 350 covers fifty trips for residents within twenty kilometres.

Urban Extension Road II is the interesting counterpoint. Phase one is 75.7 km of six lane access controlled highway, NH-344M, running from NH-44 at Alipur to NH-48 near Mahipalpur, at roughly Rs 7,716 crore, with DDA contributing Rs 4,000 crore of viability gap funding. It became operational on 17 August 2025, the same day as the Dwarka Delhi section. The Master Plan for Delhi 2047 then designated about 20 sq km along its executed stretch as a high density corridor permitting residential, warehousing, logistics and commercial use together.

And yet there is no published land or residential price series specific to UER-II. Nothing for Bawana, Narela, Kanjhawala, Najafgarh or Alipur from a named index. The appreciation percentages circulating for those areas come from brokerage blogs with no named data source, and we could find no circle rate revision attributable to the corridor. A road being open and a road being priced in are different events, and the gap between them is where the money is made or lost.

Two policy items deserve a landowner's attention. First, the National Highways Act amendments proposed in March 2025 would return acquired land to original owners if unused for five years, bar challenges to compensation more than three months after an award, fix compensation on market value at first notification, and bar transactions and construction once the acquisition notification issues. Those are proposals. Nothing indicates enactment.

Second, and more consequential, on 23 July 2026 the Supreme Court in Riar Builders questioned sections 3G and 3J of the National Highways Act, under which compensation for highway acquisition is determined by an administrative officer rather than a court. The Chief Justice observed that this is the only Act where such an exception is carved out and bureaucrats entrusted with it, and that this is prima facie not acceptable. The Court urged amendment to move the determination to judicially trained minds and to address solatium and interest. The Attorney General said the government is seriously considering it. If you hold land in a notified alignment, that case is the most important thing to have happened to your position in a decade.

One thing we could not verify, and which is asserted freely: no 2025 or 2026 notification or circular changing frontage or ribbon development rules on access controlled highways could be located. If someone is selling you highway frontage on the basis of a rule change, ask for the circular number.