Today India has access to affordable public transport and a network of efficient rail networks that is one of the longest and most complicated ones in the world.?
And most of the developments that India has seen in the field of rail transport wouldn¡¯t have been possible without E. Sreedharan -- the Metro Man of India.?
A civil engineer by profession, his contribution to the development of Konkan Railway and Delhi Metro among several other massive projects has truly changed the lives of the people in our nation.?
Son of Neelakandan Moosath and Ammaluamama, E. Sreedharan or Elattuvalapil Sreedharan was born on June 12, 1932 in the Thrithala constituency of Palakkad district in Kerela. He completed his primary schooling from Government Lower Primary School in Palakkad District, followed by Basel Evangelical Mission Higher Secondary School. He later decided to study Civil Engineering from Government Engineering College, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh.?
Sreedharan for a brief period of time served as a lecturer at the Government Polytechnic, in Kozhikode teaching subjects in Civil Engineering. A year later he joined the Indian Railway Service of Engineers while also being an apprentice at the Bombay Port Trust.?
One of his first assignments after joining IRSE was as a Probationary Assistant Engineer with Southern Railway in 1954. Here was also where he first proved his mettle. In 1963, a cyclone destroyed sections of Pamban Bridge in the South which connected Rameswaram and Tamil Nadu.
Initially, Southern Railways had set a target to complete this in a matter of 6 months. Sreedharan¡¯s Boss at the time, who handled this jurisdiction claimed he could do it in three, putting Sreedharan in charge of execution. Sreedharan completed the work in just 46 days. For this, he even received the Railway Minister¡¯s Award.?
In 1970, he was made the Deputy Chief Engineer and made in charge of the Calcutta Metro. At that time, he revolutionized the way public transport was perceived throughout the nation as this was India¡¯s first rapid transit system. It is also important to note that Kolkata Metro is the only metro in the nation to be headed by the Indian Railways.
In 1987, Sreedharan was made the General Manager of Western Railway, followed by the Member of Engineering Railway Board by 1989. By 1990 he retired. However, in order to execute the Konkan Railway Project, he was brought back from his retirement on contract by the railway minister then, George Fernandes.?
Konkan Railway is regarded as one of the most challenging railway projects in the world. It involved a complex tunnelling system that involved 93 tunnels stretched across 82 kilometres in length. The challenging part was that the tunnelling was through regions of soft soil. The overall project covered a whopping 760 kilometres and had over 150 bridges.?
After seeing his previous works, Delhi¡¯s former CM Sahib Singh Verma appointed him as a Managing Director in the year 1997 to develop a metro system for the territory of Delhi. He not only managed to complete deadlines on or before time but also managed to keep costs within the predetermined budgets -- unimaginable when thinking it's from a public company. He finally retired from DMRC in the year 2011. But that wasn¡¯t the end. He further guided execution of Kochi Metro as well as Lucknow Metro, as well as Jaipur Metro.?
He has been awarded Padma Shri for his work in the year 2001. For his contribution to the Delhi Metro, he was awarded the Chevalier de la L¨¦gion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the government of France. He has also been awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the Indian Government in 2008, among numerous other accolades.?
On Engineers Day 2020, we salute the contributions of E. Sreedharan for his engineering acumen and rail transport-based nation building efforts.