With gold-plated ceilings, exotic fountains and the clink of champagne glasses, the Emporio Mall in New Delhi is the perfect place to wile away a hot afternoon browsing through designer boutiques.

The mall, adorned with palms and scented with lavender, is the exclusive playground of India's rich, which despite the effects of the credit crisis still have plenty of cash to buy designer accessories with thousand dollar price tags.

Getting access to this little piece of air conditioned paradise amid the hustle and bustle of the sweltering capital will cost $5. That's about one week's salary for 80 per cent of India's billion plus population.

With a phalanx of security guards keeping out the destitute and a pricey admission fee, some social observers see India's first luxury mall as a symbol of an economic apartheid that they say increasingly divides the 'haves' and 'have nots' in India.

"The conditions, the ground conditions are not like those of Western cities," said Satish Deshpande, professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics.

"So, we are tending more and more towards a kind of apartheid, a kind of separation that is very sharp and sharply visible in our cities, in gated communities".

The widening wealth gap has major implications for India, which faces a general election next year, and has been plagued by waves of violence in its provinces that analysts say is at least partly due to the socio-economic divide alienating segments of society.

The issue is likely to play a central role in next year's general election in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party will seek re-election.

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