Says Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII: "The metro would be instrumental in providing proper connectivity between all the major regions of the NCR." The city's international airport, too, is being spruced up. A massive expansion project is underway at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. A new terminal and runway are under construction and scheduled for completion by 2010. This is expected to increase capacity to 37 million passengers a year. More terminals and runways are planned thereafter, since the airport authorities are expecting a capacity of 100 million passengers a year by 2026

Power Back-up
Power has emerged as another thrust area for the government. Capacity building on the electricity front is a priority concern for the city government, which intends to spend more than Rs 4,500 crore on energy during 2007-12, while in excess of Rs 600 crore would be spent in the current financial year alone.

Sold on Metro: The MRT service is a hit
Sold on Metro: The MRT service is a hit
Though the Commonwealth Games are to be held during October 2010, when the power demand is normally not very high, the government is taking no chances. The city's peak hour demand is unlikely to cross the 6,000-MW mark in the near future.

The authorities are now targeting 7,000 MW power capacity over the next two years to have a comfortable surplus. The city will get power from the Damodar Valley Corp., National Thermal Power Corp., Dadri power plant, Jhajhar plant and the Pragati power plant that would stack up to over 4,000 MW. The government intends to get another 1,800 MW from local sources in addition to the existing installed power generation capacity of 932 MW.

It will also initiate certain corrective measures to streamline power supply. The transmission and distribution loss is being tackled-- it was around 49 per cent in 2007-08 against the national figure of 30-31 per cent. The government is also looking at a couple of new projects from the Centre's capacity addition programme for the 11th Plan period (2007-12).

At the moment, the city stands to get 750 MW from the upcoming power plant at Jhajhar in Haryana. Officials point out that while the central government had fixed the capacity addition of 78,577 MW for the 11th Plan period, no project had been earmarked for Delhi and efforts are on to get some projects in the city-state territory. Says Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI: "Over the last 15 years, the state has not been awarded a single power project and that's quite disappointing."

Atithi Devo Bhava
The hospitality industry in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), too, is slated to undergo a major revamp as the city gears up to host business tourists from across the globe in the face of large-scale investments. Says Banerjee: "Clearly, it's an important focus area if Delhi is to emerge as a business hub. We need more hotels in the city across categories from five-star to budget hotels". The NCR is expected to see an estimated 27 new hotels, serviced apartments and mixed-use developments with approximately 4,900 rooms in various categories over the next 3-4 years.

Delhi, then, analysts say, has the potential to emerge as India's most favoured investment destination over the next few years. More so, it's felt that with the inception of the NCR region, Delhi has been partly relieved of the burden of growing demands from corporate bodies and government establishments. The city needed more expansion and a better infrastructure to meet the demands of globalisation. However, with the development of satellite cities like Gurgaon and Noida, this problem was solved to a great extent. Says Mitra: "Unlike Mumbai, Delhi still has space available to expand in the NCR region, particularly along the Gangetic plain."

However, despite the flurry of initiatives, there is one area where the capital still falls short: law and order, which appears be the biggest impediment in Delhi emerging as the best city for business in India. Are the authorities listening?