First section of the Delhi metro to open this year - Rapid Transit: Delhi

International Railway Journal, March, 2002 by David Briginshaw

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation plans to open the first section of a planned three-line network at the end of this year. It has set its sights high as it aims to provide the Indian capital with a world-class metro.

Delhi has a population of 13.8 million generating about 11.7 million transit journeys a day. although 62% of journeys are by public transport, Indian Railways' (IR) 144km suburban rail network only accounts for 1%. There are 4 million vehicles on the streets of Delhi--which is more than in Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata combined--and the number is growing at 7% a year. Delhi is the fourth most polluted city in the world with road transport accounting for 64% of pollution.

The 62.5km phase one of the metro is expected to carry 2.2 million commuters a day in 2006, its first full year of operation. Phase two will expand the network to 96km and boost traffic to 3.2 million passengers a day. By 2021, the metro should be carrying 3.8 million riders a day.

"When the government approved the project, it was envisaged that the metro would be completed in 10 years," Mr E Sreedharan, managing director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), told IRJ in Delhi. "Work should have started in 1995, but we didn't have an organisation in place until 1997 so we were only able to begin work in April 1998. Nevertheless, we said we would complete the first phase within seven years to meet the original target. This will be quite an achievement to build a metro from scratch within seven years."

DMRC has introduced several initiatives in order to save time, as Sreedharan explained. "We have undertaken a lot of activities in parallel, such as awarding contracts for the civil works at the same time as for the systems and rolling stock. We settle tenders within two to three months, whereas it normally takes two to three years in India. We have absolute transparency in decision-making so there are no allegations of wrongdoing resulting in court orders to stop the tender process."

Sreedharan regards his team of people as fundamental to the success of the project. "Each member of the team was interviewed personally by me," he revealed. "I went through their track record particularly with regard to their integrity. We also have about 30 foreign and 120 Indian experts who form our general consultancy team. We have sent a lot of people abroad for training. We have already started to train the key operating and maintenance personnel with Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC). These people will become the trainers for the rest of our staff. So we should not require any outside help with Line 3 and phase two. Indeed, we have started to give consultancy assistance to other Indian cities."

Another interesting facet of the project is that DMRC is trying to build the metro with minimum inconvenience to the public, "We have a community meeting to explain what we will do, what problems are likely to arise for them, and to seek their help," Sreedharan explained. "We have publicised a telephone help line number so that anyone with a problem or question can contact us. One of our main achievements has been our ability to acquire land and move people without any major problems, whereas this is normally a very sensitive issue in India."

Two of the three original metro lines were designed to parallel existing commuter railways, but new alignments have now been chosen, as Sreedharan explained. "Originally, Indian Railways (IR) took the line that it did not want to develop commuter rail services because they incurred such great losses, but now the policy has changed," There is no way that the metro would be able to compete with IR on price as its fares are so low. Although the metro fares have not been approved yet, the metro expects to charge about Rs 6 (12 US cents) for a 6km trip, compared with Rs 5 for municipal buses and only Rs 1 to 2 for IR's commuter services.

As a result, the western part of Line 1 will now follow an alignment midway between two JR lines. DMRC expects to receive government approval shortly for an entirely new alignment for Line 3 which will serve a corridor "crying out for a metro" as Sreedharan put it. The tender process will then begin immediately.

The total cost of phase one is estimated at Rs 100 billion ($US 2.1 billion). Of this, 38% is being funded by the Indian and Delhi governments, 56% comes from a Japanese government loan, and the remaining 6% from property development The cost of phase two, for which preliminary studies have already begun, is estimated at Rs 50 billion.

DMRC does not expect the metro to require a subsidy and revenue should be sufficient to pay back the Japanese loan which has only a 13% interest rate and is repayable over 30 years.

The metro will start operation with a smart card fare collection system supplied by Alcatel. Passengers will use smart cards even for single fares, which Sreedharan believes will be a world first.

The first 8.3km section of Line 1 is almost complete. Trial operation will begin in September in preparation for opening in December. "During the last month of trial operation, we will start to educate the public on how to use the metro by encouraging them to visit our stations," Sreedharan said. "We will give free rides during the last week."