| <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Rail</strong> <strong>News</strong> | <strong>April</strong> <strong>2017</strong> | www.metrorailnews.in What do you do as a nation? We lost precious 150 years before the Delhi <strong>Metro</strong> arrived and one more decade went debating whether a poor nation could afford costly <strong>Metro</strong> rail. But mercifully, the country has fitfully started at snail pace, now-on-now-off ‘evolutionary approach’ to develop <strong>Metro</strong> rail in various cities, indubitably turbo-charged by success of DMRC in the National Capital Region. But lessons from ‘Delhi <strong>Metro</strong> way’ have been largely ignored. It is time to recap what the Delhi <strong>Metro</strong> can teach in India’s quest of <strong>Metro</strong> rail revolution. It is worth noting, with 214km in operations and 160km to be modularly operational in a year-and-a-half, DMRC’s feat is comparable to none outside China. Here’s why. One, in 18 year DMRC has seen only two managing directors. While <strong>Metro</strong>-man Sreedharan’s ethics was legendary, his successor Mangu Singh too has fitted his ethical shoes well and in the last four-and-a-half years has been silently handling the daunting construction in Delhi and other cities (now Mumbai included ) worth Rs.60,000 crore. Lesson is to choose the chief carefully, give long tenure and leave the person free to perform. Two, perfected partnering model of DMRC wherein the Centre and the state holds 50:50 share and states not only contribute money, but own the project with most clearances and land acquisition being state subject should be the way forward. In the uncontestable <strong>Metro</strong> rail sector, past attempts of public-private-partnership should be accepted as a mistake. Three, plan-prioritize-proceed mantra of DMRC is the reason behind it timely opening various sections, lines, and phases within time and within cost. Modularly divided construction brigade of homegrown engineers and other managers does the rest and delivers to clockwise precision. Four, mistakes are inevitable in such gigantic projects. DMRC way of tolerance for mistakes and zero-tolerance for wrongdoing is a lesson worth uniform application. Five, converting owner-contractor adversarial relationship to partnership for national gain is the biggest learning from the Delhi <strong>Metro</strong>. Disputes are identified and solved ab initio, contractors get genuine claims within days and are supported to deliver, who in return give the project their heart and soul. Six, with daily ridership inching towards 3 million (highest ever 3.2 million), the Delhi <strong>Metro</strong> is already pride of the nation. Once phase III gets going, five million will come in no time. Lastly, <strong>Metro</strong> rail revolution is no fancy game. A study by Marco Gonzalez Navarrow (University of Toronto) and Mathew A. Turner (Brown University) in 2016 unmistakably establishes after researching all <strong>Metro</strong> rail systems that cities with larger <strong>Metro</strong> rail systems have not only more <strong>Metro</strong> rail riders but also more bus and other public transit riders. So the present 1,500km in operation, construction, planning and drawing board is not enough. India needs a revolution with 5,000km in the next one decade. DMRC shows if China can do it, India can do it as well. (Author of this article is Strategic Advisor in Delhi <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Rail</strong> Corporation, New Delhi, India) 42
| <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Rail</strong> <strong>News</strong> | <strong>April</strong> <strong>2017</strong> | www.metrorailnews.in
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