A case for metro

The book sets out to discuss the need for a well-formulated, balanced metro policy in India.

As urbanisation is gaining ground across the nation, the need to provide effective civic services, including the one to ensure fast mobility of people and materials, assumes great significance. A high-powered expert committee (HPEC) headed by Isher Judge Ahluwalia, which assessed the investment requirements for urban infrastructure services for the next two decades, states that only 30 per cent of India's population lives in urban areas today. But, according to its estimates, the country's urban population will be close to 600 million by 2031, more than double that in 2001. The number of metropolitan cities with a population of one million and above increased from 35 to 50 in the decade since 2001 and is likely to increase to 87 by 2031.

This committee also forecasts that the size of Indian cities will increase in many cases through a process of peripheral expansion, with the absorption of smaller municipalities and large villages surrounding the core city. Hence the dire need to provide better and choke-free transportation. A business-as-usual approach will not mitigate the miseries that commuters face today in the absence of affordable, reliable and efficient means of transport.

The book under review, Metro Rail Projects in India: A Study in Project Planning, will help policymakers in framing a futuristic mode of transport in metro cities. With his expertise and experience in devising and implementing a host of valuable urban initiatives as Secretary in the Ministry of Urban Development, the author, M. Ramachandran, has deftly gleaned details from prevalent global practices. In an incisive foreword to the book, E. Sreedharan, who demitted office recently as the chief of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), has estimated that by 2015 India will have 20 cities with a population of more than two million.

The Indian experience

The distinction of possessing the first metro in the country goes to Kolkata, where a 26-km line is in operation. Delhi is the next city, with a metro network of 184 km.

As the chairman of metro joint ventures undertaken in four Indian cities, Ramachandran has had the chance of witnessing closely the metro system evolve in these cities. Dwelling at length on the rationale for raising the bar on urban infrastructure to give a qualitative thrust to urban services delivery, the author bemoans the fact that urban transport does not figure as a subject in the Constitution.

Transport and urban development are State subjects. At the State level, he says, there is no clear demarcation of complex urban transport issues. This is borne out by the fact that anything related to transport is normally handled by the Transport Departments of States.

In this situation, neither the State government nor urban local bodies (ULB) take interest in looking at city transport issues elaborately. Besides, Transport Departments are traditionally concerned with meeting the annual revenue goals set by the State authorities, and handling permits and licences and enforcement.

No city or ULB can take a call on its own about a metro system since it is capital-intensive. So it is left to the State to take such an initiative, which again depends on its keenness to seek the support of the Central government.

The Government of India had realised long ago that urban transport was a separate area and allocated this subject to the Union Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) in 1986. Until then, there was no Ministry to look after urban transport; the Ministry of Railways handled urban rail systems only and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways confined itself to the Motor Vehicles Act and certain cognate provisions.

With the mandate given to the MoUD, the Delhi Metro got a push, and new metro initiatives were bolstered in as many as six cities. The funding made available from the MoUD led to various cities drawing incomprehensive mobility plans, says the author. However, a key initiative of the MoUD was drafting the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP), which set store by subserving public transport that was eco-friendly compared with expensive personalised modes of transport.

The policy rightly laid stress on the prioritisation of investment in public transport and envisaging the Central government's capital support in the form of viability gap funding, subject to a ceiling of 20 per cent of the capital cost of the project. The policy proposed both bus rapid transit system (BRTS) and light rapid transit system (LRTS), which ranges from conventional tramways to sophisticated, elevated and completely segregated systems as in Singapore.

It is against this backdrop that metro systems are today becoming an urban structuring tool. Mobility policy is developed around it and it is a key factor in improving the quality of life. Besides, the metro remains the most acceptable mode of public transport on a large scale in crowded cities.

Metro opportunities

It also offers opportunities for heavy infrastructure development and for real estate development around the stations. Moreover, as a road-space comparison, a metro can generally carry the same amount of traffic as nine lanes of buses or 33 lanes of private motor cars. Metro also has the advantage of reducing journey time by 50 to 70 per cent.

The author highlights the problems, prospects and teething troubles of the metros in Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Jaipur and Kochi. He takes due cognisance of the arguments in favour of more investment in BRTS and better buses as well as for the promotion of non-motorised modes of transport. But in the eventual analysis, the author plumps for metro as a stable and desirable form of mass public transport. However, he cautions the authorities to go in for a detailed project planning process identification, preparation, appraisal, selection, negotiation of approval, implementation and monitoring, transition to an appropriate administration and monitoring, evaluation and recommendation before taking up metro projects so that the investment decision is fully justified and justifiable.

Ramachandran says that the discussions set out in his book point to the need for a well-formulated, balanced metro policy, which will not only encourage but also mandate cities to take up metro projects when certain levels of population and development are reached.

The book is replete with details on what urban India needs for swifter mobility of its billion-plus population but does not have even a passing mention of the pitfalls in crafting a metro rail project. The author would have done well to draw up the minus side of mammoth metro projects in a capital-scarce country like India.