Sometimes in life, you can’t help but wonder if you have done enough for your country or even for yourself. For Indian Railway Man, Mr. E. Sreedharan that is clearly not the case. The man has not only been the master engineer behind various metro projects in our country but also completed various tasks well before the deadline.
At the age of 87, Elattuvalapil Sreedharan is the present Principal Advisor of the Kochi Metro Rail Project.
His story is one that should be revered because from the age of 30, he has astonished the country with his dedication and determination towards his work. Born in a remote village in the Palghat district of Kerala, he graduated from the Government Engineering College in Kakinada. He initially worked as a Lecturer in Civil Engineering in Kerala Polytechnic, Calicut, before joining the Bombay Port Trust as a Junior Apprentice.
In 1954 he joined Southern Railway as a Probationary Assistant Engineer when he was selected for the Indian Railway Service. Therein began his incredible journey to become the Metro Man of India. His first achievement was completing the repairs of Pamban Bridge that connected Rameswaram to mainland Tamil Nadu. The railway ministry set a target of six months, Sreedharan’s boss reduced it to 3 months and Sreedharan completed the work in all of 46 days! In a country used to delays, this came as a pleasant surprise. For his outstanding work, he was given the Railway Minister’s Award.
His story then took him to Kolkata in 1970 whereas the deputy chief engineer he was tasked with the construction of India’s first metro. Despite the 20-day national railway strike by 1.7 million workers, Sreedharan’s team continued with their ongoing work. This laid the foundation to all the metro works that have been taken up by the government all over India.
Metro Man wasn’t just equipped to work in the Railway departments. In 1979 he transformed the Cochin Shipping yard and was the mastermind behind the production of their first ship MV Rani Padmini by 1981. By July 1987, he was promoted to the general manager, Western Railway and to the post of Member Engineering Railway Board and ex officio Secretary to the Government of India.
Although he retired in 1990 from his post, the Government of India made him the Chief Managing Director for the Konkan Railway project by George Fernandes, the then railway minister. This unique project with 93 tunnels, covering 760 Km with 150 bridges was completed in 7 years despite a fuel shortage because of the first Gulf War. He completed the project without significant cost and time overruns by factoring all elements and setting up petrol pumps with backup supplies.
He then moved on to work on the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation when then Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma made him the managing director of DMRC. His stint in the DMRC earned him the nickname Metro Man for various reasons, with one of them being completing the scheduled sections by mid-1997. His work with the DMRC is praised not because he helped complete the projects but also for completing them within the deadlines and without crossing their respective budgets. Sixteen successful years later in December 2011, he retired after accomplishing the second phase of the project.
For his exemplary work in the Delhi Metro, he was awarded the ‘Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur’ (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the government of France in 2005 and Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2008.
Despite his retirement from DMRC, Sreedharan also is the Principal Advisor of the of the Kochi Metro Project. He is also the Chief Advisor for the Lucknow Metro Rail Project and has been working with the Jaipur Metro. Despite reports claiming him being denied a seat on the dais for the Kochi Metro launch, his dedication to watching the first metro train has not wavered.
This is the story of an outstanding man who still starts his day at 4 A.M., and never misses a day of meditation or reading the Bhagwad Gita. Every young aspiring entrepreneur has a lot to learn from the Metro Man of India, from his zeal to his disciplined life.
