Delhi’s race against time

2010 is a long way away – unless you transforming India’s capital into a world class city. The organisers are confident, but environmentalists are worried

It sounds like a wish list for an imaginary new city: an airport, subway lines, roads, eleven flyovers, sports stadiums, hotels, and even a new ambulance service. Yet this is what Delhi, India’s capital city, is planning to build from scratch by 2010, when it hosts the 19th Commonwealth Games.

Performers from Delhi carry a flag during the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne 2006

This will be the first time India has hosted the Commonwealth Games, and only the second time Asia has done so, after Kuala Lumpur played host in 1998. In its bid to host the Games, in 2003, Delhi beat off competition from Hamilton, Canada – host of the first ever Commonwealth Games in 1930. But winning the bid was a small achievement compared to the challenges now confronting Delhi. In its preparations for 2010, Delhi will have a bigger task than Hamilton would be facing.

Huge infrastructure challenge
The Commonwealth Games are expected to bring more than 8,000 athletes and officials from 71 countries and regions, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of visitors that will descend on the city for the event. Yet Delhi already has a population of more than 15 million, many of whom live in slums. The city is famous for crumbling infrastructure, congested roads and daily power cuts. So in addition to the planned extensive building programme, Delhi must also upgrade its existing infrastructure if the demands of the Games are not to overwhelm the city.

But Delhi is confident it can pull this off in time. Less than three years before the Games, the Delhi government is putting up posters proclaiming that this will be a "world class city" by 2010. And on 6 January 2008, unveiling the Games’ new logo at a ceremony in the capital, Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the organising committee of the Games, predicted great things for Delhi after 2010. "Delhi will emerge as a global city after the successful hosting of the event", he said. "Already, work on infrastructure development has started and after the Games the landscape of Delhi will change." Those developments include building or developing eleven state-of-the-art sports stadiums, a new glass and steel railway station and a seven-storey airport. Merely to accommodate the expected number of tourists, planners calculate the city needs another 30,000 hotel rooms.

Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the organising committee,
says the Games will transform Delhi into a global city

Preparing the city for 2010 requires the involvement and teamwork of several agencies, from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to the political administration and police. The Delhi government’s Power Department is preparing for a dramatic surge in the demand for electricity, with a plan to build additional power stations. The department says the total current demand at the Games venues is 23MW, which would go up to 88MW during the Games.

To cope with increased traffic, there are plans to recruit thousands more police and traffic patrollers and to install CCTVs, red lights and speed cameras on busy roads. In a bid to ease congestion, there are plans for bus-only lanes and overground light railway lines.

Perhaps most dramatically, there are plans to build a vast Games Village on the eastern banks of the Yamuna River, which runs through the heart of the city. The village, which will house 8,000 athletes and Games officials, will cover 159 acres and cost some USD 230m (GBP 117m / RMB 1.65bn / INR 5tr). After the Games, the apartments in the village will be sold.

Environmental and social worries
Rapid change often comes hand in hand with controversy, and major sporting events are no exception. Environmentalists say the construction of the Games Village will adversely affect the surrounding eco-system, clogging up the riverbed and exposing locals to serious flooding during monsoons. It was for this reason that building in this area had not been allowed before and some claim the plan is illegal.

The 1,370km Yamuna flows across northern India, from the Jamunotri glacier to the Ganges in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The part of the river that runs through Delhi has been narrowed by building that causes heavy flooding in the monsoon. It is also the most polluted stretch of river in India.

The city’s plans to spruce up and modernise other parts of the city has also caused concerns. The authorities say they will ban some 400,000 bicycle rickshaws from Delhi’s streets and evict the homeless people who sleep in the city’s huge railway station ahead of building work. A move to ban the sale of Delhi’s famous, freshly cooked street food has caused outrage among prosperous food-lovers and low-income city dwellers alike.

There are also plans to round up the cows that wander Delhi’s roads into a vast pen, upsetting Hindus for whom the animals are sacred. Non-governmental organisations that work with the poor, meanwhile, are worried by plans to clear the streets of Delhi’s 60,000 or so beggars by 2010.

One of the most outspoken critics of the changes brought by the Games is Mani Shankar Aiyer, sports minister and an MP from the ruling Congress party. He has criticised the huge sums being spent on the Games, which he says are "for the elite of this country" and of no relevance to the common person.

The Games’ organisers, however, say that the benefits of the city’s planned overhaul – from an improved power supply to the cash brought in by tourists – will trickle down to all its inhabitants.

Overseas expertise
Preparing Delhi for the Commonwealth Games requires expertise that India lacks in some areas. To bridge that gap, the city is importing professionals from overseas. The state-owned Indian Railways, for example, has appointed a British architect, Terry Farrell, to design the stations for the city’s new railway network. Farrell, who built Kowloon station in Hong Kong and the headquarters of MI6 foreign intelligence agency in London, will assist Indian Railways as it redevelops 21 stations.

Meanwhile, a bidding process has begun for the redevelopment of the site around New Delhi Railway station into shops, hotels and offices. The land, which constitutes a quarter of Indian Railways’ 212 acres of land in Delhi, is estimated to be worth about USD 2.5bn (GBP 1.3bn / RMB 18bn / INR 1tr). The companies that are expected to bid for the project include DLF, India’s biggest real estate company, and international property developer Hines, which is developing London’s Cannon Street Station and 3.7 hectares of office space above it.

The railway station development represents an enormous opportunity for foreign companies to invest in public land in India. In nearby Connaught Place, Delhi’s largest financial, commercial and business centre, office property retails for around USD 12,200 (GBP 6,210 / RMB 87,700 / INR 482,000) per sq m – representing a four-fold rise over two years.

Indira Gandhi International Airport is also being transformed in time for the event. The 450,000 m² scheme will create a world-class, high-tech airport with capacity increased from 15 million to 37 million passengers per annum. The redevelopment of the existing airport and the construction of a new, third terminal is being designed by UK-based HOK International architects. The new terminal will have 55 new aircraft stands served by boarding bridges and 30 remote parking bays.

At the logo unveiling ceremony in January, Delhi’s chief minister Sheila Dixit said she was nervous and excited. "Nervous because, we have to get lot of work done, which we hope we will, and excited because nothing like this has ever happened before in India."

This is, after all, India's first big international sports event since it hosted the Asian Games in 1982. But its organisers hope the city will not have to wait so long for the next big event. Mr Kalmadi has said he hopes that a successful hosting of the Commonwealth Games will pave the way for Delhi to bid for the Summer Olympics.