| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The strategy implementation of the Delhi Metro project can be divided into two phases:
Construction and operation.
Construction phase:
The construction work of the Delhi Metro project was started in the year 1998. Right from that stage there were multiple challenges that threatened to derail the project and make its future uncertain. Therefore, certain project implementation strategies were taken to ensure the timely completion of the project:
• Elimination of red tape: Right from the beginning it was decided that certain procedures such as elaborate paper work would be kept to minimal. The then Managing Director of the organization, Dr. E Sreedharan would conduct weekly meetings with all Heads of Departments on Mondays and take immediate decisions. Weekly targets would be set and the same would be reviewed next week. On weekends the Managing Director and the Directors would inspect the sites and give the necessary instructions. Punctuality during office hours was accorded the highest importance and stress was laid on establishing a professional work culture.
• Involvement of contractors: The contractors involved in construction work were made stakeholders in the decision making process. While a strict vigil was maintained to ensure quality, their grievances were addressed and efforts were made to make the payments on time to keep their morale high.
• Time bound construction schedule: Adherence to time schedules was given utmost importance. Every office of DMRC would have a countdown clock which would remind officials about the time left for the scheduled opening of a corridor. Apart from the official target, internal targets were set which were earlier than the official target. This apart weekly and monthly, small targets were set to ensure that the pace of construction never lost momentum.
• Community involvement: Probably for the first time in the history of India, the common man was made an equal stakeholder in the entire construction process. More than 200 Community Interaction Programmes have been organized so far to listen to the grievances and suggestions of the residents in whose area the construction work took place. Barricades were made mandatory at all sites and traffic marshals were deputed wherever required to guide the traffic.
• Labour Welfare: Great focus was laid on the welfare of the labour involved because DMRC firmly believed that having a satisfied work force was key to the rapid completion of the project. Street plays were organized to sensitize the labourers about issues such as health, sanitation, site safety, etiquettes etc.
Operations phase:
The services of the Delhi Metro were started from the 25th of December, 2002. Right from the beginning of services, certain decisions were taken to keep the services efficient:
• Lean workforce: To keep the finances in control, a decision was taken to maintain a lean work force. While the core competence areas such as operations, maintenance etc were kept with Delhi Metro, some other ancillary sectors such as ticketing, house keeping etc were outsourced.
• Punctuality: The timely operation of services has always been accorded the highest priority. In Delhi Metro, any train that reaches its destination a minute late is considered behind schedule. despite such stringent norms, Delhi Metro maintains a punctuality rate of over 99.9 percent.
• Quality housekeeping: The cleanliness of the entire Delhi Metro system has always been maintained with great sincerity. It has made such a difference to the society now that who ever travels by the Metro in Delhi behaves with great responsibility and doesn’t litter the system.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The Delhi Metro project could never have been successful without the committed involvement of a number of stakeholders. The company was established as a joint venture of the Government of India and the provincial Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Both these governments have extended unstinted support to the project right since the beginning. That apart, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a Japanese lending agency has extended soft loans for the project since the inaugural phase to the current third phase of construction. DMRC’s first Managing Director, Dr. E Sreedharan was at the helm of the organization for than a decade and effectively led the team to complete the work within time budgetary constraints. DMRC’s present Managing Director, Sh. Mangu Singh has also led the organization from the front. Apart from ensuring timely progress of construction, he has introduced many technology driven initiatives such as online recharge of smart cards, Delhi Metro App etc. Last but not the least, the people of the city have been a major stakeholder ever since the beginning of construction in 1998. They have cooperated with DMRC during all stages of construction work.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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The Delhi Metro project couldn’t have been successful without the timely availability and mobilization of a number of resources – financial, technical as well as manpower related. All these resources were available in proper coordination which facilitated the completion of most of the corridors before the stipulated time.
Ever since the beginning of the project in 1998, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has received liberal funding from the Japanese lending agency – Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). While in Phase 1 JICA’s funding was 60 percent of the entire project cost, in the subsequent phases, about a half of the project cost has been provided by JICA, which has ensured that the Delhi Metro projects have not been slowed down at any stage due to the requirement of funds.
On the technical front, may international companies and consultants have been associated with the project to ensure that the best technologies are used for the project. General Consultants, a consortium of foreign experts has remained associated with the Delhi Metro right since the beginning who have given our engineers the international exposure and perspective required to carry out such projects of mammoth proportions. Now, of course, Delhi Metro has gained the requisite expertise and is providing consultancy to not only the other upcoming Metro systems in India but also to the Metros coming up in other countries of the region such as Jakarta and Dhaka.
Another vital resource for the Delhi Metro project has been its manpower. Today, Delhi Metro employs more than 8,000 people and is one of the main public sector recruiters in the country. Employees are provided in house training after they join and are made acquainted with all the aspects of the functioning of the Delhi Metro. Since the Delhi Metro is an extremely technology driven system, great stress is laid on the importance of training the recruits.
When the Delhi Metro project was started, the initial recruits were sent to a number of foreign countries where Metro systems were already operational. However, those trips were not leisure visits and the trainees were made to work extremely hard to take a grasp of the ever evolving Metro technology.
Then gradually a state of the art training institute was developed by the Delhi Metro management, which now has the requisite expertise and infrastructure to train DMRC’s human resources with all aspects of Metro functioning. In fact, now Delhi Metro’s training institute situated in a sprawling campus at Shastri Park imparts training to the recruits all other Metro systems in India such as Jaipur, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru etc.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The Delhi Metro project yielded many successful outputs. In many ways, its success actually revolutionized and energized the mass urban transportation scenario of India, which was facing difficulties in tackling issues such as rapid increase in population, congestion of the streets etc.
• Change in transportation scenario in India’s capital: the Delhi Metro simply changed the way Delhi travels. Areas which were hitherto, inaccessible became well connected and the city could expand faster. Now the congested streets of the city have become decongested as many car users have shifted to the Metro.
• Motivation to other cities for constructing Metro systems: Following Delhi Metro’s success, many other cities of the country have gone for their own Metro systems. While Bengaluru and Mumbai have operationalised small corridors, other cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur are on the verge of completing construction work. The present government is planning to encourage all cities with populations of more than 10 lakhs to go for Metro systems.
• Training of specialized manpower: When the Delhi Metro started, there was dearth of specialized manpower to run a system like the Metro. However, Delhi Metro started a state of the art training institute that today imparts training to Metro recruits of all Metro systems in the country.
• Focus towards cleanliness and discipline in public transport: Right from the beginning attention was paid to keeping the system neat and clean. Such efforts from the Metro management triggered a chain effect among the commuters who now take equal interest in keeping the Metro clean. This has instilled greater awareness among the people about cleanliness and etiquettes.
• Reduction in travel time: The Delhi Metro has significantly reduced travel time within the city. On stretches, where commuting by road used to take two hours can now be covered in half the time without any pollution or traffic snarls.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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Continuous monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the project is extremely crucial for bringing in new changes. In order to gauge the feedback of the passengers, a commuter satisfaction survey is conducted every year during which questionnaires are circulated among more than 100,000 commuters cutting across all genders, age groups and social groups. This apart, Delhi Metro also has a feedback section on its official website through which the commuters can communicate their grievances as well as feedback to the Delhi Metro authorities. All Metro stations also have feedback/ complaint registers through which the opinions, views of the people can be collected. Last year, Delhi Metro also conducted another online survey of the commuters in association with the global Metro benchmarking groups – NOVA and CoMET. This survey was simultaneously conducted in 18 other Metro systems across the world. In this survey, Delhi Metro was ranked second among all Metros in terms of overall customer satisfaction.
Apart from the Operations activities, Delhi Metro is also engaged in large scale construction work. Presently, it is engaged in constructing 150 kilometres of Metro corridors across the National Capital Region. These projects are also time bound since Delhi is in urgent need for a more wide Metro network. In addition, there is the need to complete these projects without any escalation in the costs involved. Therefore, the construction work also requires continuous monitoring. The Managing Director of the company meets the Heads of Departments every Monday and reviews the progress of the project. He also meets the deputy heads of departments once every month. Any pending issue that may delay the pace of construction is immediately sorted. The Managing Director and the Directors also conduct surprise inspections at the construction sites to ensure that the work is done following all rules and procedures. A separate safety department is also at work which monitors the adherence to all safety related rules and regulations.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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In any large scale infrastructure assignment like the Delhi Metro, there are bound to be obstacles and hindrances. However, thanks to the Delhi Metro’s unique management practices, they could be overcome without causing any delay to the project. Let us have a look at some of the issues, which were confronted by the Delhi Metro management:
• Timely availability of land: In a crowded urban conglomerate like the Delhi and the entire National Capital Region, acquisition of land is always a difficult task as there is practically no land left for construction, especially of the stations, depots and other ancillary buildings. Such unavailability can badly delay the progress of a project. therefore, the Delhi Metro management decided to use more and more government land so that residential and market areas are not impacted. Large scale changes were brought to the design of the system so that areas such as road medians could be effectively used to take the alignment forwards. In the congested areas, underground construction was carried out so that the people above were not displaced.
• Construction work on roads and other crowded areas: Carrying out construction work on road medians, near market areas can be very difficult as such work hampers traffic and causes inconvenience to the pedestrians as well as vehicle users around. Therefore, DMRC, for the first time in India, started the system of barricading the sites. traffic marshals were put at locations where traffic was required to be regulated. Community Interaction programmes were conducted to listen to the grievances of the people and address them.
• Availability of trained personnel: Metro construction, as well as operation are technologically specialized jobs which require trained manpower. When the Delhi Metro was started, there was severe dearth of such manpower since, apart from Kolkata, no other city in India had a Metro system. Therefore, the initial recruits were sent to cities across the world to see the Metro systems there and gain the requisite expertise. Then, a state of the art training institute was started by Delhi Metro which today trains not only the Delhi Metro officials but Metro recruits of all other Metros in the country.
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