E Sreedharan popularly known as the ‘Metro Man’ who is credited for changing the face of public transport in India with his great leadership. Sreedharan has also been appointed as Chief Advisor for the Lucknow and Kanpur Metro. After many years of successful career and hard work, 85 year old Sreedharan visited Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath last month to offer his resignation, in order to reduce work load. Interestingly, he returned with hands full of works and additional responsibilities related to the future projects.
Yes, Yogi Adityanath rejected Sreedharan’s resignation and said, “I am not allowing you to resign. In fact I’m also adding Varanasi, Agra and Meerut… and also Gorakhpur”.
Sreedharan informed that the 10.5 km stretch of Lucknow Metro has been completed and is waiting for a green signal from the Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety.
Giving status on the Metro Plan in UP, he informed, Kanpur depot is ready and plan for Varanasi project needs to be revised.
He recalled the statement of Yogi Adityanath and said,
“Yogi wasn’t happy with the report. He doesn’t want any kind of construction to come up near the temple. It’s going to be underground and should be a light metro — fewer coaches with less vibration and noise.”
Sreedharan, however, believes India has still a long way to go when looking into other Metro projects which are underway in different cities across the country. He also told that while India should be constructing at least 200 km stretch for a strong metro system, the country is building only 22 km, well behind China’s 300 km stretch every year.
The biography ‘India’s Railway Man: A Biography of E Sreedharan’ says, Sreedharan has had an awe-inspiring journey in the public transport and infrastructure space of India. Even in his 80’s he still conducts inspection visits to Metro Rail works across the country for which he is a consultant.
When looking at UP Metro, The CM Yogi Adityanath government is all set to construct the ‘light metro’, designed for cities with a population between one and two million, across UP’s temple towns.
The UP CM now wants metros in Agra and Meerut as well along with Kanpur. In the case of Meerut, he plans of linking it up with the Rapid Rail.
The new start of the Yogi government, UP has joined the ‘Mission Modi’ and started working towards fulfilling the promises made at election time. Centre released Rs 442 crore for Smart City Mission and Rs 446 crore for Lucknow Metro project.
Lucknow has been given Rs119 crore, while Rs107 crore each has been given to Agra, Kanpur and Varanasi, Naidu said, adding that Rs 2 crore have been given to Meerut and Rae Bareli for sending a proposal under the smart city mission. It shows how he is implementing the schemes of the central government in a smart way.
The Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation Limited is optimistic about the reduction in road traffic and has plans of implementing integrated prepaid smart cards that will be acceptable not only for payment of metro fares but also civic amenities.
With the support of CM Yogi Adityanath, effort and planning of successful Metro Man Sreedharan, UP will be witnessing of great Metro Transportation system in India.
We can recall here M Venkaih Naidu saying ,
Adding with a “dutiful” chief minister and a “helpful” prime minister, the people of the state can hope for a “beautiful” state very soon.
Source: The Indian Express
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