Dr Elattuvalapil Sreedharan…..
The
Bharat Ratna no one talksabout
Dec 31st 2011
India had just lost the boxing day test match, with a day to spare. Star
News was deciding who was the ‘Match Ka Mujrim’. Others were wondering when
Sachin will finally score that created in the boardroom, 100th hundred. If an
alien visited India around that time and switched on the tele, he/she would
have thought our world started and ended with cricket.
Pretty sad, considering an event that slipped completely under our
radar.
Dr Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, affectionately called the ‘Metro Man of
India', bid adieu to his 56 year long career of creating 21st century
monuments. His exit was a reflection of how he lived; simple, elegant and
completely inconspicuous.
Just pause for a moment and think.
56 successive years, in a single job, without a break.
56 Years.
In other
words, Dr Sreedharan, worked continuously for a duration, in which an average Indian
generally goes from the cradle to his/her grave.
And no one in the media was paying a tribute to this great man. They were not
even talking about it. All they had was a silly ticker at the bottom of the
screen, that said ‘Dr Sreedharan Retires’. No ten thousand word articles, no
special Dr Sreedharan shows, nothing. It was like, it didn’t even happen.
Fundamental question is, Why?
Is it simply because, Dr Sreedharan, is not your quintessential Indian
Success Story?
I mean,
he is not a IITian, nor is he from an IIM. He is not from a minority community.
He did not surmount racial and casteist prejudices imposed by the society. He
did not fetch water at 4 in the morning and did not study under street lamps.
He did not milk cows to pay for his education.He is neither an actor nor a
singer. Neither is he a cricketer nor a cricketer who claims to be an actor.
He was
just a simple middle class Indian, who went about his job.
In other words, he does not fall under any bracket that our media terms as ‘an
Indian Success Story’.
And
according to the media, not an ‘Indian Success Story’ meant ‘No tribute’. And
this in a day, when even a guy like Chetan Bhagat will get a glowing biography
on his life and times, the day he finally decides to stop writing.
OK, sod the
the media. They have TRPs and paying news customers to take care of. But what
about the government? They don’t have to answer to anybody. And this guy
dedicated his entire life to them. At least they can do something.
But No.
When
names were being bandied about for the Bharat Ratna, India ’s highest civilian
honor, everyone, from politicians to Dhanush, had only one name, ‘I am stuck on
99′ Tendulkar. Infact lobbying for that guy reached such epic proportions,
that the government actually changed the award criteria to accommodate that
actor.
And Mr
Sreedharan, who triple checks all the existing criteria, was not even being
mentioned.
The
travesty is all the more acute if you consider what Dr Sreedharan has done for
our nation.
Like
Date:
22nd of December in 1964,
Location:
Rameshwaram town
For most
of the non south-Indians, Madras and South India are interchangeable terms. But
what you do not know is, South India also happens a favorite holiday spot for
various cyclones brewing in the Bay of Bengal . And this South India is not
Madras alone, but the entire states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
This
geographical part of India has been hit by so many cyclones that nowadays
meteorologists have run out of names.
For most
of us, This is THANE station near Mumbai......
One such
cyclone, hit the coastal town of Rameshwaram on 22nd of December, 1964. And it
was a deadly one.
Not so
long ago, south of Rameshwaram, there used be a bustling town called
Dhanushkodi. It had its own post office, customs office and even a Railway
Station. My bet is most of you wouldn’t have heard about it. Why?
Because on that fateful night, the Indian Ocean swallowed the entire town. More
than 2000 Indians were killed. The ocean even ensured that, a passenger train
which was beginning its last journey of the day at 11.15 P.M, made its last
journey ever. If you still can’t imagine the ferocity of this cyclone, let me
help you.....Dhanushkodi,
So where
does Dr Sreedharan come in all of this?
As a
sideshow, the cyclone destroyed the Pamban Bridge , the only bridge connecting
Rameshwaram to mainland India . And this meant Rameshwaram was completely
isolated. Considering the above cyclone something had to be done, and fast.
At that
time, Dr Sreedharan was a Deputy Engineer in the Southern Railway. And this
piece of wreck was in his territory. Indian Railways, gaveDr Sreedharan six
months to restore connectivity to Rameshwaram. Which was asking a lot
considering
Dr.
Sreedharan, had to convert this IN SIX MONTHS
Dr
Sreedharan finished the job in ..FORTY SIX 1962 DAYS.
He took
one month and 15 days to restore, THAT bridge, back to full operation. The
bridge which was India ’s longest sea bridge for 96 years, till the Bandra Worli Sea Link was inaugurated in the year 2008.
Forty
six days to restore this 2.3 Km bridge in a state where THIS BRIDGE
took six months to restore after being washed away by a flash flood, in 2006.
There
are some achievements that look cool, but once you get an award, you completely
forget about them. And then there are some you won’t forget, even if you suffer
a total memory loss.
This was
one of those things.
For all
this trouble, Dr Sreedharan got a Railway award consisting of Rs 100 and an awful
looking plaque.
The
process of short-changing Dr E Sreedharan, began in 1962.Even If Dr Sreedharan,
sat and twiddled his thumbs for the rest of his life, he would have been
considered a superhero for his bridge-building awesomeness alone. Fortunately
for India though, he did not like twiddling thumbs. Packing his bags for his
next assignment, he set off to Calcutta , where he became the chief designer of
the Calcutta Metro. And then, getting bored of railways in general, he took
charge of India ’s largest Ship building company, Cochin Shipyard. There he
designed, built and commissioned India ’s first indigenously built Merchant
vessel, the Rani Padmini, in 1981.
After
building everything from trains to ships, Dr Sreedharan according to government
rules, had to retire in 1990 when he completed 60 years of age.
But, when you are Dr Sreedharan, you don’t have the plebian privilege of
retirement.
He was asked to go to Mumbai, to take charge of what was then deemed to be
India ’s toughest project since independence. It involved burrowing through
basalt mountains, spanning kilometer long marshes and rivers and taking
railways to a place where even the Britishers thought it was impossible. This
region was the Western Ghats of Maharashtra,
affectionately
called, the Konkan.
The
railway babus simply called this herculean venture, Konkan Railway. Naming
things is not really their forte.
And
slapped it with a pathetic logo
This is
what Dr E Sreedharan had to do,
Lay 760 Kms
of railway track, through a terrain that had and this infested withand
perennially at the risk of And to do that, Sreedharan had to
1.
Acquire 5000 hectares of land from 42,000 assorted land owners.
2. Build
2000 Bridges, both major and minor, across Marshes, swamps, rivers and
backwaters.
3. Blast
92 tunnels, totaling 83 kilometers in length through Basalt, nature’s
adamantium and soft soil, nature’s china clay. You need nuclear weapons and
Arnold to bore through the former while the latter generally collapsed on
itself, if someone as much as farted. And then came the most difficult task in
the Indian Index of Difficult tasks.
4.
Dealing And Negotiating With The Chief Mini sters, Home Mini sters, Other Mini
sters And Their Chelas Of Four Different States.
And to complete all of the above tasks, Dr Sreedharan, was given 8 years.
It would be like Hercules being asked to accomplish his twelve
tasks, blinded and with one hand tied to his
back, in three days.
Hercules
Needless to say, he would have failed.
Dr
Sreedharan, supposedly retired and who qualified for Indian Railway’s senior citizen
quota, finished the job in 7 years.
Konkan
Railway to me, is the second biggest achievement of Independent India, with the
first being India remaining India . New standards will have to be invented, to
realistically measure the impact of Konkan Railway on the Indian economy.
For
starters
1. For
the first time ever, three largest ports on the Indian coast, Mumbai, Karwar
and Mangalore have a direct connection.
2.
Travel time from the southern states to the north, have been reduced by upto 40
percent. The crummy old Nethravathi Express, used to take 38 hours to travel
from Trivandrum to Mumbai.
Now,
thanks to Dr E Sreedharan and the
KONKAN
RAILWAY
the same
train takes 22 Hours. A 16 hour reduction in travel time. And a 16-18 hour
reduction in travel times of all trains going from Kerala,Karnataka, Goa to the
North.
All the
trains.
Try
measuring the impact. Don’t bother, you can’t.
And new
levels of difficulty need to be established to measure the difficulty of this
task. The sheer number ofarchitectural impossibilities overcome by Dr E
Sreedharan and his team in making this wild dream a reality, is mind boggling.
All I can do is suggest you to go here, here and
here.
However, there is one thing that encapsulates what all the above links have to
say
THIS IS
THE VIADUCT OVER THE PANVEL NADI
Which
basically is a Marsh Between two Hills And to traverse it, The train has to
travel at a height, which is as tall as
In other words,
Dr
Sreedharan and his team, built a goddamn Qutub Minar, over a marsh, between two
hills, just so that, a train could chug over it.
Need I say more?
You will see this wonder of Modern India immediately after Ratnagiri on
the Konkan Railway. In the 15 kilometer stretch between Ratnagiri and Nivasar,
there are 3 tunnels and 5 viaducts. The third viaduct is the Panval Nadi
viaduct, immediately after the first tunnel. The exact sequence will be —-
> Big Tunnel, Massive Gorge, Big tunnel again
Dr
Sreedharan though, never had the chance to taste his success. In December 1997,
one year before the Konkan Railway was thrown open to traffic, he was shunted
to New Delhi to head a new organization. It was created to find a viable
solution to the traffic woes of the aam aadmi in the
national capital.
This organization was called the Delhi Metro Railway Corporation.
Of all the railway systems in the world, building a metro is the most difficult
in the world. Most difficult, becomes impossible, when you have to build that
damn thing under and over a megapolis.
Impossible
reaches ‘You must be kidding me’ levels, when that megapolis in question is Delhi
and the country in question is India .
There
are more people in this pic than there are in Canada .
Delhi Metro was not India ’s first metro. Calcutta has that honor. But Calcutta
’s ‘I built my own metro’ story, was one sorry tale
Sample
this
1. It
took 22 years to build the Calcutta Metro, A metro whose total length was 16.75
kms. In other words, Calcutta Metro construction dudes managed a grand average
of 0.76 kms a year.
2. The
Calcutta metro suffered from debilitating shortages in almost everything.
Shortages of funds, shortages in labour and shortages in everything else. The
only they had in plenty was those damn shortages.
3. And
it was harried by the parent, the Indian Railways, every step of the way.
If the
Calcutta metro was any indicator, the 168 Kms long Delhi Metro would have been
beset with shortages, harassed by the Railways and would have been completed in
A.D 2083.
If ever
there was a movie made about Dr Sreedharan’s job, it would have looked
something like this
But this
was Dr E Sreedharan.
When he
started off, he put in place some things that were never before done in the
history of Indian mega construction projects Like
1. His
appointed himself as the judge, jury and the executioner as far as the Delhi
Metro was concerned. No external influences were tolerated.And he took no
prisoners. There have been stories were, people walked in with the traditional
M.P recommendation letter, walked out of his office, with the paper in two
different hands.
2. After
giving himself the power, he changed the tendering process, upside down. In a
country, where opening a single tender on an average,tooksix to nine months,Dr
Sreedharan got the job done in 19 days. YES,19 Days.
3. When
confronted with the standard Government ‘I am short of money’ rigamarole, Dr
Sreedharan did what any sensible government servant would do. He simply cut out
the Government from the funding.
He single-handedly went and got a loan of USD 5 Billion sanctioned from the
Japanese Bank of International Co-operation to fund the Metro. Now, 60 percent
of the necessary finance secured, Government shut up and stumped up the
remaining cash.
4. He
then hired top International consultants from an assortment of countries, to
cover for the lack of local talent, to supervise and execute the project.
For the
first time in the History of India, the entire Delhi Bureaucratic circle was
completely circumvented. That too, by one 74 year old dude from Kerala.
As a result Phase one of the 5 billion dollar metro, was completed three years
before schedule, entirely within the initially stipulated budget. And there was
not even a single shard of corruption.
In India
, that is the closest we can get to walking on water.
If someone had in 1998, said that such a thing would happen in India , He would
have been given a priority ticket to Agra/Alibaug/Kilpauk or the nearest mental
asylum.
Today,
the Delhi Metro is complete and for the first time, Dilliwalas are enjoying the
benefits of a full fledged suburban rail system that has a punctuality factor of
99.999 percent. All thanks to this man
Next
time, any Dilli boy/girl tries to mock you or anyone with the moniker Madrasi,
just mention the words, Metro-Sreedharan-Madrasi in the same sentence. The
other side will shut up.
The
successful execution of the Delhi Metro, made Dr Sreedharan the Tom Cruise of
the Metro Rail universe. Every Indian city worth its salt, now wanted its own
metro and Dr Sreedharan as its consultant.
One such city was Hyderabad . And the company executing that metro was a
company called, MAYTAS INFRASTRUCTURE.
You know
where this is going.
In
September 2008, Dr Sreedharan, after observing as a consultant, sent the
following report to the Planning Commission, Government of India
Making available 296 acres of prime land to the BOT [build, operate and
transfer] developer for commercial exploitation was like selling the family
silver. I fear abig political scandal some time later, as it is apparent the
BOT operator has a hidden agenda which appears to be to extend the metro
network to a large tract of his private land holdings so as to reap a windfall
profit of four to five times the land price.
Planning
commission, that plans little and develops less, as usual did not pay heed to
this report. In fact they chastised Dr Sreedharan, for not backing up his
allegation with necessary proof.
This is
what happened, three months later
Remember
how the scandal
started? It started by Satyam Computers,
arbitrarily taking over Maytas infrastructure, a company that was neither in
IT, nor was a competitor. In fact the only link between Satyam and Matras was
that it owned by Ramalinga Raju’s sons. And sensing that Maytas was in big
trouble, he ‘bought’ the company to save it. And Dr Sreedharan, predicted that
the company was in trouble, three months before the world knew it. So let me
just encapsulate, if that can be done, on what Dr Sreedharan has done for the
country1. He restored India ’s longest sea bridge which was completely destroyed,
in 46 days. 2. He designed India ’s first Metro.3. Supervised the building of
India ’s first indigenous Merchant vessel. 4. Executed India ’s most difficult
project since Independence.5. Gave Delhi wallahs, something called the Metro.
6. Predicted India ’s biggest corporate fraud, three months before it
happened.I don’t know how the Bharat Ratna nomination thing works. But I
believe you stand a chance if you have done something good for the country. Now
tell me, what has Dr Sreedharan not done for the country? I mean when you can
consider a guy who sells a computer anti-virus on prime-time television for
India’s highest civilian award, Why is there not a whisper about a guy who has
ensured 400,000 people on the western coast of India saw a train for the first
time? Or, was responsible for a sharp drop in road-rage
killings in Delhi?
Come to
think of it though, I really don’t want Dr Sreedharan to get the Bharat Ratna.
I mean, he will then join a club that is populated by people like Bismillah
Khan, Lata Mangeshkar, Bhimsen Joshi etc. No disrespect to them, but they were
at best, paid performers who had negligible impact on the population of India .
(Lata Mangeshkar in fact has had a negative impact. A flyover which will
bring respite to thousands, if not lakhs, of Mumbaikars is not being
constructed solely due to her ‘privacy’ concerns)
Dr Sreedharan should not be
given the Bharat Ratna. Because the Bharat Ratna does not deserve a man like
Dr Sreedharan.
********
Very Good!
Not only worth reading but it tells the truth to the nation that has no value
for truth. This "mallu" Sreetharan is an Engineer and Government
Servant. That does not say much in a Country where many of the Engineers
in Public Works department are corrupt and famous for taking "bribes"
and not doing their tasks. He had to rise well above this "brand
name" of the Engineers who build our bridges, railway lines and roads and
use them productively to accomplish his tasks. Dr Sreetharan was a manager par
excellence but he had not gone to IIM to study management. He never had any
political support because he kept away from politicians. But he had the courage
to tell the truth and do what is right. Yes, Dr Sreedharan does not need
Bharat Ratna because he did not belong to this group of awardees.
Please read story fully even though it is bit long. Thanks, Nanda.
S.Murugan
Received From: nanda cariappa
