Elattuvalapil Sreedharan: The Metro Man of India

A civil engineer from India and a retired IRSE officer, Elattuvalapil Sreedharan is popularly known as the Metro Man. He is credited for changing the face of public transportation in India with his leadership in building the Konkan railroad and the Delhi metro, while he served as managing director of the Delhi metro between 1995 and 2012. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2001, the Padma Vibhushan in 2008, the Knight of the League of Honor in 2005 by the French government and was named one of the Heroes of Asia by TIME Magazine in 2003. He was also appointed by the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, to be part of the High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport (HLAG-ST) of the United Nations for a period of three years in 2015. He is also a member of the Devi Sanctuary of Mata Vaishno Board.

E. Sreedharan was born on June 12, 1932 in Karukaputhur, in the current Pattambi taluk, Palakkad district, in the state of Kerala. His primary education was from the government of the lower primary school of Chathannur, near Pattambi, in the district of Palakkad. He completed his education at the Upper Secondary School of the Evangelical Mission in Basel and then went to Victoria College in Palghat. He later completed his Civil Engineering degree at the Government Engineering School, Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, now known as JNTUK.

E. Sreedharan and T. N. Seshan were classmates at BEM High School and Victoria College in Palakkad. Both were selected for Engineering at JNTU Kakinada, a university in a port city in Andhra Pradesh, however, E. Sreedharan decided to continue, while T. N. Seshan decided to join the Christian College of Madras (MCC). [10]

Career as a teacher

For a brief period, Sreedharan worked as a professor of civil engineering at the Government Polytechnic Institute, Kozhikode and a year at the Bombay Port Trust as an apprentice. Subsequently, he joined the Railway Engineers Service of India (IRSE), after passing the Engineering Services Examination of India in 1953 conducted by the UPSC. His first job was at the Ferrocarril del Sur as Assistant Test Engineer in December 1954.

Government career

Pamban Bridge

In December 1964, a cyclone washed away parts of the Pamban Bridge that connected Rameswaram with continental Tamil Nadu. The railroads set a six-month goal to repair the bridge, while the head of Sreedharan, under whose jurisdiction the bridge was located, reduced it to three months. Sreedharan was put in charge of the execution and restored the bridge in just 46 days. The Minister of Railways Prize was awarded in recognition of this achievement.

Kolkata Metro

In 1970, as a deputy chief engineer, he was put in charge of the implementation, planning and design of the Calcutta metro, the first subway in India. Sreedharan not only completed this much-publicized project but also laid the foundations for modern infrastructure engineering in India. He was removed from this position in 1975.

Cochin Shipyard Limited

When Sreedharan joined the Cochin Shipyard in October 1979, he was in a phase of unproductiveness. The production of his first ship MV Rani Padmini had been delayed for a long period. When Sreedharan took over, he turned the shipyard's fortunes around and made sure his first ship was built while he was its president and CEO (CMD). In 1981, under the leadership of Sreedharan, the shipyard launched its first ship, the MV Rani Padmini.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Sreedharan