In the pantheon of Hindu gods, Vishwakarma, the celestial engineer holds pride of place. When Lord Brahma, the creator, wanted to create the universe he entrusted the task to Vishwakarma who completed the task to perfection in the stipulated time. It was therefore ordained that a day be set aside to offer special prayers to Vishwakarma and so Vishwakarma Puja is
celebrated by all artisans to this day in all parts of the country.
When a resurgent India ushered in an era of liberalization in 1991 under the Prime Minister Sh. Man Mohan Singh, then Finance Minister of India, a modern day Vishwakarma was required to upgrade the inadequate railway infrastructure to one that was state of the art and futuristic on one hand and built in reasonable time and with less than abundant financial resources. The choice was narrowed down to Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, someone who was known to have always lived up to his word and honor the trust reposed in him. He had retired from the Indian Railways a year earlier.
Sreedharan was born on 12 July 1932 in Karukaputhoor in Palakkad district of Kerala. The surname Ellatuvalapil belongs to the famous Tharavad in this part of Kerala. He was a classmate of T. N. Seshan, the former Chief Election Commissioner of India in school. He later studied at the Victoria College in Palghat and then graduated as an engineer from the Government Engineering College, Kakinada (now JNTU). After a short tenure as a lecturer in Civil Engineering at the Kerala Polytechnic in Kozhikode and a year at the Bombay Port Trust as an apprentice, he joined the Indian Railways in its Service of Engineers. This was through a nation-wide selection procedure and his first assignment was in the Southern Railways as a Probationary Assistant Engineer in December 1954.
In 1963, a huge tidal wave washed away parts of Pamban bridge that connected Rameshwaram to mainland Tamil Nadu. The Railways set a target of six months for the bridge to be repaired while Sreedharan's boss, under whose jurisdiction the bridge came, reduced it to three months. Sreedharan was put in-charge of the execution and he restored the bridge in 46 days. The Railway Minister's Award was given to him in recognition of this achievement.
In 1970 - 75, as the deputy chief engineer, he was in charge of implementation, planning and design of Calcutta Metro, the first ever metro in India. Anyone who is familiar with the topography of Calcutta would know how this entirely underground service was constructed without jeopardising any existing structure on the ground though it was terribly delayed due to the land acquisition issues in a communist regime.
There has been another first to his credit. It was during his tenure as Chairman and Managing Director of the country’s premier shipbuilding company Cochin Shipyards that their first ship, RANI PADMINI, was launched. He was General Manager, Western Railways during 1987-89 and was elevated to the post of Member Engineering, Railway Board and ex-officio Secretary to the Government of India. He retired from Indian Railways in 1990.
He was appointed the CMD of Konkan Railway on contract in 1990. Under his stewardship, the company executed its mandate in seven years. The project was unique in many respects. It was the first major project in India to be undertaken on a BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) basis; the organisation structure was different from that of a typical Indian Railway set-up; the project had 93 tunnels along a length of 82 km and involved tunneling through soft soil. The total project covered 760 km and had over 150 bridges. Many new technologies were developed to overcome topographical limitations. That a public sector project could be completed without any significant cost or time overrun is no mean achievement.
He was made the Managing Director of Delhi Metro and by mid-2005. He had put in a condition of non-interference by politicians in his administrative decision-making which was granted with a view to meet tight deadlines and minimal disruption of civic life in Delhi. The first phase of the project covering three lines of a total length of about 70 kms was commissioned in 2005. Line 1 (a length of 23 kms over ground), Line 2 (a length of 11 kms underground) and Line 3 (a length of 36 kms over ground) are already operational and carry over 3 million passengers daily. All the scheduled sections were completed before their target date and well within their respective budgets.
Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh while inaugurating the underground section on December 19 2005 appreciated the efforts of the Delhi Metro and observed, "The time has come for all of us to think big and think into the future. The 21st century will be the Century of Asia and without doubt the Century of India but to hasten this journey, we have to create the required social and economic infrastructure." And think big, Sreedharan certainly did. The phase I is expected to generate substantial benefits. Not only would it bring down the number of buses on the roads by 2,600, it would increase the average speed of buses from 0.5 km per hour to 14 km per hour. Two million man-hours per day would be saved due to reduction in journey time. Fuel cost worth Rs 5 billion per year would also be saved.
"We had an able and experienced team leader in Sreedharan. He spelt out the mission statement and the corporate culture clearly to one and all. The idea was to make Delhi Metro a world class Metro, a vehicle to promote dignity and discipline in the city," recalls the chief public relations officer of the DMRC, Anuj Dayal. "Sreedharan’s personality was a crucial factor. He led by example."
The "corporate culture" accordingly lays out that integrity of executives and staff should be beyond doubt; punctuality is the key word; targets are most sacrosanct; organization must be lean but effective; corporation must project an image of efficiency, transparency, courtesy and "we-mean-business" attitude; and construction should not lead to ecological or environmental degradation.
What contributed in no small measure to DMRC’s success was the autonomy given to the managing director. "Sreedharan took up this task on the condition that he should be allowed to choose his own team. Furthermore, he came to enjoy a fair degree of autonomy. Financial powers were vested in the managing director. Also, the managing director was the last authority on tenders," explained Dayal.
Another precondition was the minimum interference of the government. The work culture was so designed as to reduce dependence on subsidies. Soon the message went down the line that there is nothing called a free lunch or freebies. The organization therefore was able to resist pressures from many quarters. Even the Prime Minister bought a ticket for enjoying a ride on the Metro.
What makes the DMRC a case study of management is the insertion of a clause into the contract with companies that they must have an Indian partner. Consequently, the DMRC is procuring the trains from Bharat Earth Movers Limited, Bangalore, and elevators are also being produced indigenously. Another feature is the punctuality with which the DMRC pays its contractors, who are called business associates.
The success of such a venture would have been impossible without divine intervention. Any other project of this magnitude might have got bogged down in litigation, but not so with the Delhi Metro. There are about 400 court cases pending in the courts, no court has given any stay order till date. This meant the Delhi Metro could go on executing its work without worrying too much about cost escalation or delay.
In the past nine years, the Delhi Metro has redefined public relations to a certain extent. It did not employ conventional methods, though. Instead, it chose alternate ways to generate goodwill for the organization. Fortunately, it did not need to look far. In ensuring minimum inconvenience to motorists and pedestrians alike, the Delhi Metro successfully converted a challenge into an opportunity. That paid rich dividends too. All utilities were diverted in advance to ensure that there was no disruption of water, electricity, sewerage and telephone connections during the construction of the area. Barricades were put up and an alternate traffic plan drawn up with the help of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and in collaboration with Delhi Police. Also, new roads were built or the existing roads widened to accommodate traffic.
The Delhi Metro organized community interaction programmes for redressing problems that arose among the local people. Every Monday, heads of department would meet and set new or review targets. "We have also devised a reverse clock," says Dayal.
Not only does Delhi Metro offer a more comfortable and safe travel for the commuters, it would help reduce atmospheric pollution levels by 50 per cent. Commending the Delhi Metro for paying due attention to environmental concerns, the Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi recently said, "
The construction had been undertaken in an eco-friendly manner and ten trees had been planted for each one felled."
The Delhi Metro has also secured ISO 14001 certification for adhering to environment protection norms and the OSHSAS 18001 certification for meeting world standards in protecting the health of workers and passengers alike. Another hallmark of its operations has been labor standards. It employs 45 persons per kilometer of work. This ratio is one-third of that of the organizations elsewhere.
Sreedharan was given the sobriquet of Metro Man by the media. In 2005, he was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the government of France. He had previously announced that he would like to retire by the end of 2005, but at the behest of Prime Minister Sh. Man Mohan Singh, he agreed to carry on for another three years to oversee the completion of the second phase of Delhi Metro. He has also been approached by Pakistan Government for the development of the Lahore Metro plan, an offer he politely declined.
He has never chased monetary reward. In a country with billions of dollars in infrastructure projects, a man of his abilities could have written his own paycheck but he chose to serve India and inspire teams of brilliant engineers to chase the same dream. That some of his junior team members were picked up by the corporate world at salaries that were 50-60 times higher than what the government jobs were fetching them would indicate what he would have been worth in the job market had he chosen to chase monetary compensation. In mid-2005 in an interview with The Indian Express, an Indian daily he admitted that he was drawing a salary of $ 1000 a month, what others in similar positions in Government jobs were drawing. A similar position in the developed world would have been worth million of dollars per year in bonuses alone. When asked how he managed to retain his team with such low salaries, he said he managed that by giving them a superior work ethic, by instilling pride of achievement and by job satisfaction.
In his illustrious career spanning over 45 years, he has been bestowed numerous a
wards and honours. The following list is representative and not exhaustive. I am sure many laurels await this great son of India. He has brought honour to these awards as much as they have to him.
· Railway Minister's Award (1963)
· Padma Shri by the Government of India (2001)
· Man of the Year by The Times of India (2002)
· Om Prakash Bhasin Award for professional excellence in engineering (2002)
· Juror's Award for leadership in infrastructure development by CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) (2002-03)
· One of Asia's Heroes by TIME (2003)
· AIMA (All India Management Association) award for Public Service Excellence (2003)
· Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris causa) from IIT Delhi.
· Bharat Shiromani award from the Shiromani Institute, Chandigarh (2005)
· Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the Government of France (2005)
· CNN-IBN Indian Of the Year 2007: Public Service (2008)
· Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India (2008)
Sreedharan is also a Fellow of The Institution of Civil Engineers, U.K., The Chartered Institute of Transport, U.K., The Institute of Railway Transport, India and The National Academy of Engineering, India.
It appears that he would be there to oversee the Delhi Metro and many similar projects to completion, may be in a different capacity. He is a Vishwakarma who can not be allowed to rest since India is in a hurry and has a lot of catching up to do. One only prays that God grants him a very long life to leave his imprint on the stable foundations of the modern and fast developing India. The people of India need him to carry on so that they can move ahead fast.
Today's newspapers reported that he has tied with similar-minded senior people in public life to start an NGO to try and usher in systemic changes to eradicate corruption and improve transparency in public affairs and politics. I am sure our worthy PM Sh. Man Mohan Singh would also put his weight behind this endeavour.
It remains to be seen when the Government of India would bow to the wishes of the common man and bestows upon this worthy son of India the honour of Bharat Ratna, the gem of India, that would truly befit his immense contribution to the motherland.
