New Bangalore airport exposes India's infrastructure challenge

Bangalore: In southern India the much-awaited Bangalore international airport is almost ready, but getting there could prove a nightmare for travellers facing more chaos on clogged roads.
The Bangalore project well illustrates the problems India faces in fixing its creaky infrastructure to match an economy expanding at an annual rate of nine percent.
Growing personal incomes have fuelled a surge in air traffic and car sales, straining aviation and road infrastructure in a country that needs to invest tens of billions of dollars in public works.
Domestic air traffic is forecast to double to 60 million passengers by 2010 from last year, while car sales are projected to reach two million units from 1.4 million in the same period.
From Electronic City in south Bangalore -- the hub of India's information technology industry -- it could take a four-hour drive to reach the airport when it opens.Flying time to the nearby southern city of Chennai is just 40 minutes.
India's traffic problem is particularly acute in Bangalore, and seemingly set to worsen. The city of six million people adds 1,000 vehicles to the roads a day and traffic crawls at an average speed of 13 kilometres an hour.
26/02/08 AFP

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Categories: airports Feb 2008, New Feb 2008