For years now the projects has moved from one mahogany table top to a teak table top, but has not been translated into action. The number of vehicles on the road rode up a rising graph and almost like Icarus touched the sky! Planners and traffic policemen wrung their hands in despair and transport experts debated and debated, on everything from cycle tracks to the gestation period for a city metro to be functional. Meanwhile I observed something of the people of Delhi-they were becoming patient! The number of traffic jams were innumerable, but I found most drivers switching off the ignition and relaxing. A few years back they would have honked till the battery wore out. But for the sake of developing some patience on the road, life could not be spent waiting for the road to clear and so, on the first of October, 1998, the Delhi Metro Project swung into action. Part of the rail system will run on the surface, part of it will be underground and another part of it will be elevated. An network aggregate of 198.5 km to meet the projected traffic demand for the horizon year 2021 is to be undertaken in three phases.

Amidst celebration excitement the first phase of this mega project was set in motion. The first phase covers the distance between Shahdara and Tis Hazari. It consists of 55.3 km and covers 3 routes: Delhi University to Central Secretariat, Shahdara to Nangloi, Sumzimandi to Holambikalan.

Within two years of the beginning of the new millennium, the first train should be chugging through Delhi. It may be meaningless for a non-Delhiite to hear of the distance covered by the first phase of the Metro or the kind of traffic that traverses the distance today. Let me now explain to you just what you will miss/ save if you travel by a Metro instead of a car or a scooter or an autorickshaws or a cycle rickshaw or a bicycle or even a horse drawn cart. Yes, this is a crowded corridor and you have so many different types of transport to carry you. It may sound romantic to think of moving to the rhythm of a horse drawn cart, almost like a novel based in England of the eighteenth century. But let me assure you that it is nothing like that with the sun glaring down at you most of the time. Then there is the urgency to get to your destination. Just as you seem to be moving along, a taxi will overtake you and thus block the inflowing traffic. A traffic jam, a small or big fight depending on individual tempers and the weather. Finally, when you reach your destination, it is a desire for nivana that dominates your senses.

When you sit in the Metro, the MRTS project report says 31.85 lac commuters will be siphoned off the road. No, the train would not be packed like sardin tins. The train can carry 30,000 to 80,000 persons per hour per direction. The trains will run every two-three minutes. The MRTS survey says one train can carry the same amount of traffic that 9 lanes of buses can carry. Do they know that in India buses are so full that a person within the bus breathes due to his intrinsic yogic prowess and not normally? They answer in the affirmative, but even if we allow for only eight lanes of buses, it will still be such a relief. More the relief when you hear that there will be 3,500 buses less on the road when the first phase is completed.

As excitement mounts and I think I will defer all my outings to the year 2005 by which time 55.3 km of metro rail will be functional in Delhi. It is music to my ears to think that travel time will be cut by 50-75%. The only disadvantage of this is that the traffic was a good foil when you were late. After 2005, that excuse may no longer be valid.

The Metro rail runs entirely on electricity. According to their report they will not rob us of our domestic consumption of electricity, they have already tried providing for it from NTPC Thermal Power Station at Oriyya stage II. Efforts are underway to make the trains safe and ensure safety in the continuous supply of electricity. They also say that the Metro will consume just 3% of Delhi’s power. It will definitely clear the air of pollutants. When I heard the details about the pollution the Metro is gong to relieve the Delhiites of, I wished that like Rip Van Winkle I too could sleep off till the Metro comes alive. As though to make my writing more eloquent, the officials gave me figures of pollution near my house. Once the MRTS comes they told me, the carbon dioxide levels would reduce by one tenth (!) They had figures for other toxic gases, but I thought this information was not good for my stomach. So I told them to keep it ready for reference, but put it away as of now.