MISSION DELHI 2010....Work in Progress..!

Saddi Delhi – Our Delhi will look like a new city, a city where everything will be of International standards.

The Commonwealth Games are around the corner, and with development on various fronts having been expedited in the past few years, the city can finally be said to have taken its place among the great metropolises of the world.

Where there were once elevated heaps of rubble that you had to maneuver your way around, there are now completed flyovers. A new high-capacity bus service ensures that buses stay in their own lane, segregated from the rest of the road.

No traces of the Metro are visible where they shouldn't be; it's connecting all parts of the city with quiet efficiency. Load shedding is a term youngsters have to look up in the dictionary.

That scenario may not be as improbable as it sounds. When the plans drawn up for city development by the various authorities are implemented, we could see the emergence of one of the world's great metropolises. Ten thousand buses will be replaced by 2009. The new vehicles will have pneumatic doors, low floorboards to ensure easy boarding and alighting, and an automatic vehicle tracking system for monitoring purposes. One joke has it that one of the ways to tell that you're among Delhi's elite is if you've never been on the Metro and don't know anyone who has. Given this perception, can the Metro become a practical means of transport for people who have their own cars, the way the tube is in London?

On the power front, more generating units are in the planning. Land in Bawana, north Delhi, is being developed for a new 1,000 MW power plant and simultaneously a second 330 MW plant will be built at Pragati, next to the existing one.

But a city needs more than just its civic infrastructure to qualify as a world city. In recent years, that's one aspect that has already gained a fair bit, with hotels and restaurants, theatre and world food, multiplexes and malls storming its cultural landscape. The international airport, however slowly, is due for privatizations. There are more golf courses and leisure parks, residential apartments with penthouses and swimming pools and health clubs; services -- everything from restaurant takeaways to groceries -- are on call.

On any evening, there are art shows and international bands performing at prominent venues. The signs are all there for

Delhi -- so far infamous only as India's capital -- becoming a world-class mega polis. But only if the development and growth of its infrastructure keep their date with destiny.

But these things are in pipeline and going slowly. We have to wait and watch to see how the things will change around.