Let VIPs move around underground, to avoid grounding the rest of us

US President Barack Obama’s offer to the pregnant Chelsea Clinton to use his official motorcade in case she needed to get to the hospital while he was in the UN general assembly was not entirely facetious. As Manhattan is gridlocked when he is in town thanks to the security drill, that would probably have been the only viable option for any speedy emergency journey. City dwellers in India increasingly face the same predicament, as more and more peripatetic important personages cause interminable delays. So, the proposal for a tunnel from the VIP area of New Delhi to the airport on the city’s outskirts is a capital idea. In fact, in view of the increased security concerns for all kinds of ‘important people’, it may be worth their while to have such tunnels in every state capital as well.

In terms of the time, fuel and man-hours saved, a whole series of VIP tunnels would be well worth the probably astronomical cost. If it saves them the trauma of being stuck for hours in VIP movement-related jams — which last long after the aforementioned personage has sailed by — the Indian taxpayer may actually be happy about her contribution being spent thus. Even the tunnel-boring machines now engaged in furthering mass rapid transport systems would probably be gratified to be elevated to VIP duty.…