Saturday, January 14, 2012

The Metro mania and E. Shreedharan

The Metro mania and E. Shreedharan

Posted by: "R.K kutty" kutty_rk2006@yahoo.co.in   kutty_rk2006

Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:18 am (PST)



The Metro mania and E. Shreedharan
E. Shreedharan and Metro rail are synonym. These days, the Metro man is much in news. He retired from the active participation of the DMRC's Delhi project by year ending 2011, despite much prodding to continue for some more time by the Delhi Administration. But, Shreedharan, a man of principle and high dignity, kept his word. 
But hardly could he hang his boots, there arose a high calling from his own home State, Kerala where the much ambitious Kochi Metro project's fate was hanging fire. The Kochi Metro Project Director and its Board of Directors suddenly decided to go for global tender to complete the over 5,000 crore project through private players in this field. The argument put forth by them was that since Metro project is universally acclaimed there are many agencies undertaking it other than DMRC, therefore, it would be  better to try for it. 
Well, immediately on hearing such a proposition, E. Shreedharan, who was earlier willing to extend his expertise and volunteered to provide even administrative and technical support to the project, stated that if the Kochi Metro Project wishes to disassociate from the DMRC then he may not cooperate with the Kochi project in any way. This has stirred up a political storm in Kerala where the Left front that is in the opposition now charged up against the ruling UDF of alleging the possibility of large scale commission if the Kochi Metro decides to go for global tender. All sorts of allegations and counter  allegations, for and against DMRC and E. Shreedharan,  cropped up. Finally, the UDF govt. submitted to public pressure and none but the Kerala CM recently visited Delhi and discussed the whole issue with E. Shreedharan who convinced the CM about the pros and cons in continuing with the DMRC and or going for the global tender to execute the project with
some outside agencies. Now that the Metro man is in Kerala and in all probability there will be a positive decision to assign the project to DMRC under E. Shreedharan's over-all administrative and supervisory control. 
In a world where people are hunting desperately for jobs, here is a man who is being hunted by ambitious projects, one after the other. What is very special of this Palghat born Malayalee? Yes, he is upright, honest, and sincere and the most disciplined one to emulate. Having joined the Indian Railways as a Project Engineer, E. Shreedharan's most challenging job was the Konkan Railway, till then considered as  the most impossible project to be undertaken indigenously and even  external agencies were not too willing to take it up. Whereas, not only Shreedharan took up that challenging task but also accomplished it within the time frame. Since then, there was no turning back. Even after retirement from Railways, the Metro projects from Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and now in Kochi were hunting him one after the other. God help this 70+ but looking much younger Malayalee to accomplish more and more such ambitious projects  so as to bring India to
international standard in the long run. One feel when E. Shreedharan join the  Kochi Metro project, it will prove a reality within next couple of years and the Queen of  Arabian sea will add up one more feather to its cap like the much attractive Vallarpadam Cargo Terminus now made operational after lots of initial teething problems and numerous hassles. 

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