Gravy train
It has helped young women go to college. It has opened Old Delhi to the rest of the capital. Ten years after Delhi’s Metro came into being,
The men in their fluorescent jackets are working round the clock — and there is jubilation round the corner. Someone somewhere is investing in a plot of land in this part of Delhi, hoping to get handsome returns within a year. Others are looking at their social calendar, planning out meals and outings. And a few, no doubt, are getting ready to welcome a...
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would-be groom’s family.
Oblivious to the underground activities of the Janpath Metro station, which will cater to 9,000 commuters once operational, traffic moves overhead in central Delhi. But in the areas the Metro is going to reach out to, there is joyous anticipation.
Last week, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) announced that its third phase would start functioning at least six months ahead of its scheduled opening in September 2014. Around this time next year, Delhi expects to welcome the 9.37km Central Secretariat and Kashmere Gate corridor Metro line.
The extension of Delhi Metro, the capital’s much lauded public transportation system, is being viewed with interest by Shumaila Khan. “People may not realise it but had it not been for the Metro, I would never have gone to college,” says the 21-year-old student of English literature. Her college is in West Delhi, about 20km from her Chawri Bazar home in the Walled City. The Metro takes just about 40 minutes to ferry her from home to college.
Last December, Delhi’s Metro turned 10. Operating on a network of 190km and spread across seven corridors and 145 stations in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad, the rapid transit system has been a boon to the people. Commuting, of course, has become so much easier. But that was expected. What it has also done is change lives.
“The Metro altered the entire course of my life,” Khan says. “It has allowed many more girls like me to venture out of our homes. After college, we can now dream of working in companies in Gurgaon or Noida,” she adds.
On February 11, the Delhi Metro registered its highest ever ridership of 22,89,617. A 2011 report of the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) says that on an average there are 1,17,249 fewer vehicles on the road daily because of the Metro.
And that’s just one of the benefits. If it has brought with it a hike in real estate prices, it has also added new landmarks. Better educational and employment opportunities, new business ideas and matrimonial alliances are some of the other not-so-obvious changes that happened in its decade-long existence.
Salim Hassan has a tale to narrate. “Would you believe it if I said that now girls from our family are getting better marriage proposals,” asks the retired government official from Chitli Qabar in Old Delhi. A decade ago, Hassan found it difficult to get a groom for his niece. “Though she was a postgraduate in social work, families outside Dilli 6 (the area is popularly called by its pin code) were apprehensive,” he says.
Many were under the impression that those who grew up in Old Delhi lacked social skills because they seldom came in touch with people from other parts of Delhi. Now that the young are freely moving across the city because of the Metro, such concerns have abated, he says.
Clearly, the Metro has bridged distances — physical, social and cultural. Delhi Homeopath Sarika Chaddha thought Old Delhi was inhabited by “the other”. Now after many trips to the area, browsing for silver, hunting for spices or eating chaat, she has grown to know and love the area.
“Before the Metro, distance was not the only hindrance. I wasn’t comfortable going to the Walled City. I had this mental block,” she admits.
Pervez Ali Zia, a 19-year-old college student, knows what Chaddha is talking about. “Many of my friends were dumbfounded when they visited my house for the first time. They couldn’t believe that these narrow lanes could have a three-storey house with all modern amenities,” he says.
Zia enjoys his friends’ visits, especially because his older siblings could never bring their friends home, thanks to the distances and the traffic. Zia, who has grown up with the Metro, never faced these problems. “I also go to shopping malls in South Delhi which were out of bounds earlier,” he adds.
The Metro is not just about reduced travel time, less road traffic, and pollution and accident reduction — though that’s there too (the CRRI report says it has led to an annual reduction in fuel consumption of 1,06,493 tonnes, saved 28 minutes of travel time per trip and reduced accidents by 591 every year). It’s also about bringing down cultural and social divides.
The Metro is also turning into a convenient landmark for people in the National Capital Region. The pillars on which the tracks rest are used as directions and addresses. These numbers are even printed on business cards, almost taking over the role of pin codes which identify areas.
A small eatery — suitably named Metro — opened shop in West Delhi the day the trains started operating in the city. Now the address reads: Opposite Metro Pillar 655. “When we started giving directions to our customers, we realised that this landmark could be used in our business cards. Nobody gets lost now,” says Vinod Kumar, an employee.
Then there are business ideas borne out of the metro. MetroMates, a social networking platform, solely for metro users, connects fellow travellers. Sammer Suri, the brain behind the venture, launched the website in 2011, which now has 12,000 registered users from across the country. “Metro journeys could be boring, so this is a platform that helps people chat and be friends. I am soon going to launch this as an app for android phones,” says the 27-year-old online marketing professional.
Sociologists agree that the Metro is bringing about sweeping changes. Amita Baviskar, associate professor at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, describes it as a great “leveller” in society. “In Delhi, which is increasingly getting segregated according to social class, the Metro has helped remove barricades. The upper middle class may not use a bus but may travel in a Metro alongside a labourer,” Baviskar says.
Real estate too is booming. Prices have rocketed by 50-70 per cent in areas such as Gurgaon and Noida, now connected by the Metro. “Gurgaon prices increased from around Rs 5,000 per sqft level in 2006 (when the Metro to Gurgaon was announced) to around Rs 9,000 per sqft range towards the operational phase in 2010,” says Anuj Puri, chairman and country head, Jones Lang LaSalle India, a global real estate services firm.
When the Metro first started its journey on December 24,2002, on an 8.5km stretch, Delhi had seen it merely as a mode of transportation. Who knew that it was also going to change the way Delhi looked, travelled and lived?
TIME OF ARRIVAL
In Bangalore, the Metro has been running a distance of 6.7km from Baiyappanahalli to MG Road since October 2011. On weekdays, 15,000-17,000 people take the Metro; 25,000 on weekends. The next phase — 72km to be built at a cost of Rs 26, 405 crore — is awaiting the Centre’s approval.
In Mumbai, the Metro begins its trial run by April-end, though the 11.4km-long route will be ready for public use by the year-end. The first phase between Versova and Airport Road is expected to be operational by August and the second, between Airport Road station and Ghatkopar, by December.
In Jaipur, the first phase between Mansarovar and Chanpole will be operational by June. Work will progress in two phases and be complete by 2017. In Chennai, the Metro will cover 45km in two corridors and be ready by April 2014. It’ll have 19 underground and 13 elevated stations.
Metro work is under various stages of planning in Kochi and Hyderabad, while proposals are being tabled in Chandigarh, Lucknow, Pune and Ludhiana.
THIRTY YEARS LATER
The Metro has been running in Calcutta for almost 30 years now. Locals hold that one of the biggest impacts has been on the working population. Radha Dolui, an ayah registered with a centre in Baruipur, a remote area in South 24 Parganas, believes the Metro is to be thanked for her increased earnings. With a station at New Garia, where she lives, she can travel to almost any part of the city. “The Metro has bridged the gap between north and south,” she says.
It has also turned into a platform for culture. “This time on Poila Boishakh, baul singers will travel in the Metro to entertain commuters and celebrate the Bengali New Year,” says Protyush Kumar Ghosh, deputy general manager, Metro Railway, Calcutta. Poet-singer Kazi Nazrul Islam’s family has proposed that his birth anniversary be celebrated similarly on May 27, he adds.
The Metro came into existence in 1984, plying between Bhawanipore (now Netaji Bhawan) and Esplanade. Today, it’s the lifeline of the people. Sometimes, even organisers of events — for example at Rabindra Sadan — adjust show timings according to the Metro’s schedule. Programmes are wrapped up by 9.30pm because most audience members like to catch the last train home, says writer and theatre scholar Devajit Bandyopadhyay.
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