E. Sreedharan spoke to BW on urban transportation and the way forward for a country that is urbanising at a frenetic pace Most people take life easy after retirement. But Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, 79, has been on the job since he retired from the Indian Railways in 1990. The managing director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) will hang up his boots at the end of the year. He will leave behind a legacy that is quite hard to replicate. The Metroman, as he is also known, has redefined the way large projects are implemented in India. He spoke to BW’s Anup Jayaram and M. Rajendran on urban transportation and the way forward for a country that is urbanising at a frenetic pace. Excerpts: Where do you see urban transportation heading in the future? Will metro rail transport meet travel needs of people in cities over the next 20 years? I am also the chairman of a working group set up by the Planning Commission to advise it on urban transport in the 12th Plan. We have been debating this issue at length. Generally, if the threshold limit of the volume of traffic in a particular corridor is more than 15,000 passenger car units or PCUs (by 2021), a metro is necessary. Otherwise, it will not be possible to manage the traffic. Any city with more than three million people must have a metro system. We are yet to get the latest census numbers, but even with the current estimates, at least 20 cities will have a population of more than 3 million. Each of these would require a metro. CROWD SERVICE: DMRC estimates that ridership will touch 2 million by end of the year (BW pic by Tribhuwan Sharma) As a planner, my approach would be to ensure that when a city’s population reaches 2 million, we should start planning for metro. In a country such as ours, a metro is a desirable service. It should be the backbone of transportation in a city. The main corridor should be a metro, the feeder services to the backbone can be in the form of BRT (bus rapid transit), normal bus services, even trams if a city can afford. Various combinations are possible. There cannot be one single formula for all cities — it will differ from city to city. A comprehensive transportation study should be done for each city to identify major corridors, depending upon the demand. If the volume of traffic is less than 8,000 PCUs, BRT can be a solution — but a temporary one. When the volume of traffic reaches 15,000 PCUs, a metro will be a necessity. If the BRT is at the ground level, switching over to a metro is not a problem. But if you have an elevated BRT corridor, it will come in the way of future metro projects. We have to be very careful even to suggest such an idea. Because once you have an elevated BRT, as some states are proposing, you cannot have an overhead metro on that route. That leaves us with just the option of going underground — which is very costly. Is that the reason why monorail projects have not taken off in India? No, monorail is not being thought of as an option because the cost of a monorail is equal to that of the metro. Mumbai is executing a monorail project and the cost has come to Rs 165 crore per km. That is the cost for a metro. But then the metro can carry more people. Further, the cost of operation and maintenance (of a monorail) is double (that of a metro). The monorail is not a viable option for urban transport. It may be a good option for an isolated area such as amusement parks to attract people, or a connection within an airport where the traffic is not very high. If that is the case, why do so many states in India want a monorail? This is mainly because of pressure from the monorail lobby. The Malaysian lobby is very active. That is why Jayalalithaa (chief minister of Tamil Nadu) has suddenly started speaking about monorail. But Kuala Lumpur has very good monorail and metro projects. Yes, but all of them are running into losses. They all have been taken over by the government. They have got two private metros — both of them ran into losses and threw up their hands in despair. You spoke about a comprehensive transportation study. Can you please elaborate on this? This is as per the stipulation of the ministry of urban development. It says that before you start planning on urban transport, do a comprehensive study, which will bring out what is the best mode of transport for the city. Do state governments have a role in preparing this study? Yes, state governments will have to ask for the study and pay 50 per cent of the cost of the study. The Centre or the city would bear the balance. Once the system is finalised, say, if the state opts for a metro, various alternatives are available then. One option is to go for a complete government-sponsored project. The second is to have a public-private partnership (PPP) model such as Hyderabad or Mumbai. Even in a fully government- sponsored project such as Delhi Metro, where central and state governments are fully involved and are responsible for profits and losses, they are equal partners. Then, there is the Chennai metro model where the company is a joint venture. Here, losses and the cost overrun becomes the responsibility of the state government — which is not desirable. Do you feel the PPP model will work in India? The PPP model has never been a success anywhere in the world, so far. But in India, we have started it in Mumbai, Hyderabad and the Delhi airport line. I have always advocated that a PPP model can be successful if the project can levy very high fares on customer, like in the airport express model in Delhi where the fare suggested is Rs 150 per journey. In a metro, the average cost is Rs 14-15. If the fee can be hiked 10 times that of normal metro, then the PPP model can be successful. In Mumbai, the work has been on for the past 6-7 years and it will take another 2-3 years for it to complete. In Hyderabad, work has not even started physically, though the contract was awarded two years ago. It is not a very happy experience. Ultimately, private concessionaires will find it so difficult to manage that they will ask for hefty subsidies, and the government will be forced to give it.