I traveled to Delhi after a gap of some months, in the case of some areas a year or more, and was astonished to see the pace of infrastructure development. In fact, every time one travels to Delhi, one notices improvements. Be it the centre medians, the sidewalk skirting, the sidewalks themselves, the road surfacing, the flyovers or the metro, there is continuous, visible progress. Driving to Jhandelwal Extension, I was astonished to find an elevated railway along the middle of the road with a station further down. The last time I was there, admittedly a little more than a year ago, none of this existed. That’s pretty fast for executing infrastructure on that scale!

The metro station in Connaught Place too was complete, with landscaped parks above it. People told me with great pride that the travel time to Rohini, a distant North Western suburb, is now just twenty minutes from Connaught Place! Similarly, the metro is being reached to places like Gurgaon, and even Dwarka which is beyond the airport. Two observations from this trip: one, clearly the Delhi Corporation has its act together in terms of maintaining and improving the civic amenities in the city; and two, Delhi seems far more capable of executing large scale infrastructure projects rapidly while ensuring quality of execution.

One can always argue that it’s the capital and therefore the higher levels of interest. However it is indisputable that Sheila Dikshit has done an exemplary job with regard to the infrastructure and civic amenities in the city during her terms as Delhi Chief Minister. What of our local government? After all, Chennai is the capital of Tamil Nadu! Here, the parties are too busy with their internecine war fare, be it the Chennai Corporation or the Legislative Assembly to pay too much attention to improving the city at a fast pace. The IT Corridor, which was supposed to be complete by the end of August (or was it June!) is nowhere near completion. In fact it looks like it will take another two years at the current slow pace of work!

The elevated railway to Velachery has taken some seven years to complete with the last section still incomplete. The flyover at the airport appears a long way from completion as does the grade separator at Kathipara. The roads in the suburbs of Chennai are in a shambles. Even a well established suburb like KK Nagar is in a pretty bad state. If the Chief Minister is incapable of ensuring that a suburb named after him has decent roads, side walks and civic amenities, what level of interest can we expect for the rest of Chennai? Metro rail lines along two routes have been announced. There are a number of projects announced under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban renewal Mission totaling Rs 18,000 crores for the city. We would be lucky to see all this completed in our life time it appears.

Its time we had a government that is focused on improving civic infrastructure and services at a rapid pace to stay ahead of demand. Instead of constantly trying to play catch up and failing miserably. Take the case of the Velachery Link Road from SRP Tools on the IT Corridor to Velachery. In doesn’t take a scientist or traffic engineer to see that the vehicle traffic on this road is intense and that it needs to be widened. Now the traffic from the IT Corridor is also diverted from LifeLine Hospital to this road near the Traffic Institute (!) where it turns to rejoin the IT Corridor at SRP Tools. The least they could have done is widened the road before diverting the traffic. There is absolutely no co-ordination or planning that’s evident in how these decisions are taken. Or between the water supply board, the sewerage and the Corporation.

Chennai is recognized as a global city because of its vibrant economic growth. But at the rate at which the government is executing (or not executing!) infrastructure, and with the haphazard working of the civic bodies, the city is turning into a nightmare for the average citizen. (I haven’t even dwelt on the desperate need for a long term solution to the water supply for the city) Unless the government wakes up to this and focuses on the areas that really matter, it’s only a question of time before Chennai starts choking on itself like Mumbai already has. Delhi has the Central Government and the Judiciary to hold it accountable given that it’s the capital of the country. In our case I guess it will have to be the citizens who hold government accountable for the state of the city. Will that happen? I think it will- sooner rather than later!