How Mass Rapid Transit alias Metros transformed INDIA Urban Mobility?

We are more ahead as a developing nation, but just a few steps behind a Developed nation. All segment Industries & Urban Infrastructure plays a vital role to achieve that tag. Nation achievement is always linked with their people & their prosperity.

We have seen various hard times as constructing a 17km metro line in 23 years to an 8.5 km metro stretch starting in less than 3 years. When our 1st metro planning files started moving from the Railways Engineering dept to PMO in the early 60s, we were totally dependent on foreign agencies from consultancy to construction. Today, as we are entering into this urban transport booming industry, we can help other nations too along with our ongoing pan-Indian projects.

In 1969, the Metro politician Transport Project was set up with USSR, German & Hungarian teams to build our first metro in Kolkata. We were using the traditional cut & cover method & shield tunneling with aid of foreign aid. Kolkata Metro was an utter failure due to various political meddling, technical problems, and bureaucratic delays. It was completely trial & error for us.

This failure became the mother of our success with #Delhi_Metro.

Delhi, being the national capital was going through overpopulation & rapid urbanization from all other parts of India. People, buildings, industries & vehicles everything was increasing exponentially. Along with this congestion, pollution had already given a knock in Delhi Air & Water Quality. Delhi buses were the lifeline of Delhi common people- their only solution for transportation. The privatization of DTC buses after the 1992 budget failed as most of the new operators lacks experience which led to other sets of problems in the NCT of Delhi. The Metro Transport Project had already done some previous surveys in the late 60s for Delhi, which later laid the formation of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) in 1995. It was equally funded & run by the Central & Delhi State govt, which had more authority powers than the MTP team which were involved in Kolkata Metro.

Construction began in 1998 & completed its first phase in 2006, 3 years before schedule time & within budgets. E Sridharan was managing director of DMRC, also known as Metro Man for all of us. He didn’t only build DMRC but made DMRC a capable organization that provides its consultancy to many metro projects pan India. Reading him, I found out two things about his working style.

He sent his men to a foreign land to study the actual ongoing metro projects. This way he tried to reduce the error to a minimum. Next, he took the authority to settle all payment-related issues for contractors in such a way as it removes lengthy procedure of payments issues.

In an interview, Sheila Dixit, then CM of Delhi explains how she got immediate aid for Central Govt then laid by Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. E Sridharan, on various occasions, praises Atal Ji for their authority support in the success of DMRC.

“Metro” word in India was anthimeria for Delhi Metro only. Metro means Delhi Metro. Facilities & Securities for plyers became the 1st preference for them. To date, they had kept it as maintained as well.

DMRC Phase I of about 65 km begin operational in 2006. Phase II of 124 km became operational till 2011 under the UPA-1 govt, along with Phase III of 160 km started in 2011, scheduled to complete by 2016, but completed in 2019 under NDA-2. Now they have started Phase IV in 2019 & scheduled to be completed by 2025-26 at most. Phase IV got delayed due to the final nod from AAP run state govt was pending even after principal approval was done in 2016 only.

Actually, DMRC will be World's 3rd largest line in Rapid Transport System (RTS) as soon as Phase IV completes, as it overtakes New York Subway(368km) & London Underground(402km).

Namma Metro (Our Metro) is the official name for Bengaluru Metro. Bengaluru is very peculiar about its environment & greenery when it comes to any infrastructural projects be it buildings to roads to bridges.

Citing such reason, till this year, they had only two metro lines despite being an overpopulated & overexpanded urban city. DMRC built its techno-feasibility report after the success of Delhi Metro in 2003. Their first reach line started in 2011 & recently one line in this year Jan’2021, completing a total stretch of 49km. Most of their projects line were pending for a decade. Under Modi-1 & Modi-2, they commissioned 75% of the work. More than 120km?are in the construction phase, supposed to complete before 2025.

Gurugram Metro has unique in the whole of the country. It is the only city that has two kinds of metros running altogether. One is the extended line of Delhi Metro, which was commissioned in 2010 as part of an extension to connect Delhi with Gurugram. The second one is the Gurugram Rapid Metro line, which connects commercial areas/office buildings. It started as a fully private-funded Light metro in 2013, later DMRC took over it as primary owner IL&FS announced they are not able to continue the operation citing financial issues.

Mumbai Metro, known as Maha Mumbai metro started operation in 2014 with a stretch of 12 km only after 8 years of the foundation stone was laid in UPA-1 in 2006. It was first of its kind – built over PPP mode with Reliance(69%)-MMRDA (26%) & France(5%). After Line 1, all other lines are still under construction & hoping to begin the operation by 2022/23 on half of them. DMRC also assists in preparing DPR for Mumbai Metro.

After all 4 metros, the Jaipur Metro operation started in 2014 with a stretch of 2.5 km. Seeing a number of reports, I can conclude that Jaipur Metro is the most useless rapid metro system considering its operation expenses & users. It is completely owned by the State govt, where other tier-2 metro cities are going in PPP or Central- State partnership, they kept it as state affairs & didn’t able to bloom. They didn’t approach for Central assistance. With the regular revision in DPR & cost-cutting, they are still trying to cope up & new stretches are being constructed.

Before NDA govt took the chair in May 2014, India only had these 5-6 metros of around 225 km stretch only. As of now (H1 2021), they are more than?25+ cities metro construction are ongoing with a target to complete 1000km of stretch. In the last5-6 years, we have seen a maximum growth in metro lines for more than 450 km.

But how did it change actually?

Did they change the technology?

Did they invest more?

Earlier a single kilometer stretch of metro system would cost to govt around 150 Cr INR to 300 Cr INR for the overhead viaduct to underground duct respectively. Yes, that is a huge cost for infrastructure, even there is ROI in upcoming years from that project.

Metro Rail Policy 2017 & Metro Railways O&M Act 2015 changed the scenario of Indian Metros.

Policy 2017 allows every tier – 2& 3 cities with 20 lakh population or more to work on pre-requisite for a mass rapid transport system. It also allows having metros in towns where the population is more than 10 lakh. It encourages the PPP model & Equity Share model more keeping all pre-existing financial models in the books.?

The concept of Neo Metros & Metrolite was introduced. Some of the proposals for Nashik, Noida & Warangal were based on this.

Generally, suburban towns have the feasibility to have overhead viaducts. Agra is going with one such project where 1st line of 3 stations in a 3km stretch had only cost less than 200 Cr INR.

After the Make in India initiative takes place, we are now making coaches racks to a number of products in India. We are still dependent on some of products & technology but the same will be overtaken in upcoming years. Few foreign-origin consultants & construction companies are working here with their Indian base as everyone knows we are expected to have more than 30 Billion USD investment before FY2025.

Successful & ongoing metro line in India as :

·??????Chennai Metro

·??????Kochi Metro

·??????Lucknow Metro

·??????Hyderabad Metro

·??????Noida Metro

·??????Ahmedabad Metro

·??????Nagpur Metro

·??????Pune Metro

·??????Navi Mumbai

·??????Agra Metro

·??????Kanpur Metro

·??????Patna Metro

·??????Indore Metro

·??????Bhopal (Bhoj) Metro

·??????Meerut NCT RRTS

·??????Surat metro

·??????Jammu Metro

·??????Srinagar Metro

·??????Guwahati Metro

·??????Gorakhpur Metro

·??????Vizag Metro

·??????Coimbatore Metro

Along with these 25+ cities, there are numerous projects pending feasibility study & government approval.

After going through detailed works of such infra segment of in details, I personally believe Indian Government is working for two points :

·??????Taking those projects to their operation phase which are being neglected for a very long

·??????Also, making all of us ready with the best of urban mobility so that we all don’t have to cope with more third world problems in mobility & transportation.

The above-written piece contains Factual/Data Information?which is already available on the public platform.?I have tried to point out the journey in this mobility segment till now.