New Bangalore road to beat jams

India has worked hard to improve its road network

India's technology capital Bangalore is to get an $87m (£48m) toll motorway in order to tackle the city's growing congestion problem.

With the city established as India's main centre for outsourced Western businesses, jobs are now as plentiful as the traffic jams on its roads.

The new road into a business zone is being partly paid for by its US and European tenants, including Siemens.

They have long complained that traffic problems were harming business growth.

Boom city

India's federal minister for road transport, highways and shipping, TR Baalu, said the new 9km (5.5 mile) road, and a number of separate carriageway-widening projects, would go a long way to resolving the transport infrastructure grievances.

The new expressway will open in April 2007, Mr Baalu said, and will be 33% paid for by the business tenants.

"These projects will ease congestion and support the growth of the industry," he said.

Many US and European corporate giants, including Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and Tesco, have in recent years exported operations such as software development and customer support to Bangalore, attracted by low wage costs and cheap property prices.

The city, capital of the southern state of Karnataka, now accounts for some 32% of India's $12.5bn annual revenues from overseas outsourcing.

After years of rapid growth Bangalore has a population of 6.5 million and 1.95 million cars.