E Sreedharan: India Should Plan Metros For All Cities Of Over Two Million People

In an illustrious career spanning over half a century, Dr E Sreedharan, popularly known as India’s ‘Metro Man’, changed the face of public transport in India. He is best known for his monumental contributions towards the success of the Delhi Metro which now serves as a benchmark for similar projects in other cities across India. Today, even at the age of 83, he advises metro corporations across the country and continues to work for the betterment of India’s public transport system and the society at large.

As part of the Swarajya Smart City series, we contacted Dr Sreedharan and he was gracious enough to give an interview to us. Following are excerpts:

Some urban planners have concluded that 64 Indian cities need some form of an efficient rail transport system today, with 22 of them readily qualifying for a full-fledged Metro system. Do you agree with this assessment? Critics say that metros require huge capital expenditure and maintenance costs. Would the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) work better instead?

World over, the practice is, when the population of the city reaches one million, studies for a Metro system commence and by the time the population reaches two million, a Metro system is in position. Metro Rail systems are ideal for mass transportation with least energy cost, no accidents and no pollution. No doubt, this is highly capital intensive, but operating and maintenance costs are less than those for road based systems.

To reduce our dependence on oil imports, we should plan Metros for all cities having a population of over two million. To reduce capital investments on Metros, standardization and indigenisation are necessary, and the Government should exempt all taxes for a Metro system. By these measures alone, the capital expenditure can be brought down by about 20-25 percent. Unfortunately, in the last budget, service taxes have been imposed on Metros which will now increase the Metro cost by 6 to 8 percent.

BRTS can be adopted wherever one lane of the road can be reserved exclusively for buses without causing heavy congestion in the remaining part of the road. Today, this is not possible in most of our cities. BRTS has been a failure in Delhi. The usual problems of pollution and road accidents are not eliminated in BRTS.

Except the Delhi Metro, all the other Metros under construction have faced time delays and cost-overruns. What are the major reasons behind this?

The main reasons are delays in land acquisition and inept project management, and competent persons not being put in charge of such Metros.

The Lucknow Metro is touted as a success story. The Chief Minister claims that he will get the Lucknow Metro running before the May 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections – a record time of around two years, without any cost over-runs. What went right with the Lucknow Metro?

Lucknow Metro took the right decision of selecting an experienced technocrat for the execution of the project. The State Government gave full support for land acquisition and made sufficient funds available in advance.

By themselves, Metro projects are not profitable in most cities of the world. During your tenure, the Delhi Metro was profitable but presently, it is not. Some people say that the government should subsidise the Metro as it is a public service, a positive externality for the environment and for social life in general. Others say that if the Metro is dependent on the government for funds, it will be subjected to political interference from the government. Is there a way out of this debate?

World over Metros don’t make book profits.  At best, they make only operational profits and even that is very rare. Delhi Metro continues to make operational profit. Being a public transport system, the ticket charges have to be affordable to the common man. With a statutory fare fixation committee, the pricing of tickets can be taken out of political control.

You have taken a strong stance in favor of appointing specialists in specialist positions against the current rule of appointing generalists who usually man the senior posts in government departments. But how do you answer critics who say that even in the private sector, persons at the highest level are usually those who have worked in eclectic domains?

Metros are technically very complex and that is why I always recommend that technocrats should be put in charge of Metros. Without technical background, important decisions cannot be taken in time, leading to time overruns and thereby cost escalations.

How do you rate this year’s Rail Budget?

The recent Railway Budget has been a total disappointment. Presentation of the budget gives an excellent opportunity to improve the health of the system, bring in a new work culture (which does not need any investment) and to lay the foundation for modernization and up-gradation, particularly in respect of safety. We don’t find any push for these in the budget presented.

You have said that the Railways should not be running specialist schools, but in China, there are design institutes functioning under the Chinese railways which have played a pivotal role in fast-forwarding Chinese rail projects. So could you clarify this point?

What I stated was that Railways should not run normal schools, which is today a State subject, but training schools and design institutes are definitely necessary for upgrading technology and skills.

You have battled for High Speed Rail in Kerala but overall, for railways, you say that we probably could have waited for another 8-10 years before getting into high speed railway. Is there an anomaly here?

I am certainly in favour of High Speed Rails, but the existing railway system needs huge investments for augmenting capacity modernisation and technical upgradation. Between the two, with the scarce resources available, the priority should be for the latter.

Tell us about the ‘odd-even’ scheme of Delhi. Studies show that air pollution is largely unaffected by this scheme, but advocates of the scheme point out that even reducing traffic congestion in a place like Delhi is massively beneficial.

Odd-even scheme will no doubt reduce congestion. But consider the enormous inconvenience to half the section of car owners. This is therefore no remedy for Delhi. The public transport system in Delhi should be given a big boost and every residential and commercial concentration should be within 0.5 km of a Metro station. The bus fleet on the roads has to be tripled. Instead of plying huge monster-type buses, narrow air-conditioned buses with low floor should be introduced. Unfortunately, the country is not manufacturing such types of buses.

What about app-based taxi aggregators? Aren’t they wrongly vicitimised with stricter regulations by the state government, when they can actually be part of the solution to the traffic problem in cities?

I entirely agree with you.

Lastly, a personal question: at the age of 83, you still have a busy day. Are you planning to take up any further engineering assignments, or perhaps a stint in politics, given the sort of faith you’ve inspired in people?

I have no political ambitions whatsoever. Because of my advancing age, I have stopped taking new assignments. But I am doing a lot of charity work and with my experience, I hope to help in socially beneficial schemes.