Life in a Metro: How Sreedharan keeps track

NEW ORDER: Sreedharan has changed the face of urban transport in India by building the Delhi Metro.

          

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The Delhi Metro is the fastest infrastructure development in the world. One-man builder who is also a visionary and is making all this possible is CNN-IBN Indian of the Year, E Sreedharan. National Affairs Editor, Diptosh Majumdar discovers more about the Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.

E Sreedharan: All the people here draw government salaries. The middle level engineer or deputy chief engineer for that matter takes home about Rs 20,000 a month.

Diptosh Majumdar: And how much do you take home?

E Sreedharan: After deducting all the taxes, I hardly take away about Rs 30,000.

Diptosh Majumdar: The Metro employees know about other long-term benefits about working with an institution.

E Sreedharan: The private field cannot have this sort of training and expertise so they start poaching on our strength. Attrition is taking place and we try to anticipate on this attrition, recruit more people, train them and keep them as results available so that we don’t suffer.

Diptosh Majumdar: Is there one important perk that you can guarantee?

E Sreedharan: I personally feel that the employees get job satisfaction here. They get new exposure, see technology and get an opportunity to work with new things, and that makes the market value so high.

Once they work here for two-three years, they can go out and command a salary 20 times that they get here.

Diptosh Majumdar: What plans do you have for the other Metros?

E Sreedharan: After the Metro gets completed the bus system has to get remodeled.

Diptosh Majumdar: But what about Bangalore?

E Sreedharan: It applies the same for all the cities.

Diptosh Majumdar: When did you conceive of such a clock that will remind the employees that the project has to be on schedule?

E Sreedharan: The then CMD, one Mr Khanna had started a project so when I got the opportunity to handle the project, the first thing that I did was meet Mr Khanna and find out how he managed to complete the project on time.

One of the tips he gave me was the clock and this clock keeps everybody on their toes.

Diptosh Majumdar: Are you a hard task master at work?

E Sreedharan: You have to make it perfect otherwise it will derail.

Diptosh Majumdar: What kind of people travel in the Metro?

E Sreedharan: All kinds of people including the rich and the poor travel in the Metro.

Diptosh Majumdar: So gradually class-mixing will happen as it happens in other big cities of the world.

E Sreedharan: It definitely will happen and rich people will travel in the metros after about 10 years and they will find that there is no place to park their cars.