February 14, 2008	Thursday	Safar 06, 1429

NEW DELHI: The new 32-lane toll plaza outside New Delhi is one of Asia’s biggest and a gateway to India for many foreigners, but traffic snarls have made headlines and underscored India’s unsteady pace of infrastructure development.

Inaugurated last month, the flagship 28km highway linking New Delhi to the international airport, the tourist state of Rajasthan and the IT hub of Gurgaon, home to many multinationals, was meant to cut journey times.

But poor sign posts, a lack of monthly passes and what local media calls the “poor etiquette” of drivers trying to jump or switch queues or buses using car lanes, has led to waiting times of up to 45 minutes for drivers at the highway’s toll plaza.“The current toll plaza mess in Gurgaon has national relevance — of how bad planning can turn a dream project into a nightmare,” an editorial in the Times of India said.

The toll plaza is part of billions of dollars of infrastructure being poured into the capital ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, when India hopes to showcase Delhi as a global capital worthy of India’s growing economic punch.

The toll delays may just be a hiccup in an otherwise impressive project. But, two years behind schedule and immersed in red tape problems from the start, the privately built highway shows one of India’s growth dilemmas.—Reuters