India Diary - 3
The Cheese Has Moved
A few years back, Delhi was choked with traffic and pollution was alarming. The government tried to force the bus operators to use CNG as fuel to reduce pollution, worked on building more and more flyovers over choked intersection and started the ambitious and unexpectedly-successful Delhi-Metro project. No doubt all these helped a great deal to ease the problems Delhi was facing, but there was another factor in action.
Delhi started spreading. It has always been spreading like any other big city in the world but here the spread was so fast and effectve that it looks like Delhi has not only spread but moved. With the outsourcing boom and better road infrastructure, Gurgaon, the sleepy suburb a few years back has almost become Delhi downtown. I visited Gurgaon a couple of times this week and noticed that whatever traffic Delhi was missing was not only because of Metro, but because those cars were in Gurgaon :). Malls and high-rises abound. There is dust all over the place: not because its a village, but because 50% of the land is under construction. Real-estate has risen 10-fold in the last few years! What does this tell about the population here: they are moving with the cheese.
A few years back, Delhi was choked with traffic and pollution was alarming. The government tried to force the bus operators to use CNG as fuel to reduce pollution, worked on building more and more flyovers over choked intersection and started the ambitious and unexpectedly-successful Delhi-Metro project. No doubt all these helped a great deal to ease the problems Delhi was facing, but there was another factor in action.
Delhi started spreading. It has always been spreading like any other big city in the world but here the spread was so fast and effectve that it looks like Delhi has not only spread but moved. With the outsourcing boom and better road infrastructure, Gurgaon, the sleepy suburb a few years back has almost become Delhi downtown. I visited Gurgaon a couple of times this week and noticed that whatever traffic Delhi was missing was not only because of Metro, but because those cars were in Gurgaon :). Malls and high-rises abound. There is dust all over the place: not because its a village, but because 50% of the land is under construction. Real-estate has risen 10-fold in the last few years! What does this tell about the population here: they are moving with the cheese.
posted by Vishu at 11:41 PM
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