Delhi's Lifeline- the glorious history of Delhi metro

If you are a romantic capable to romanticize every mundane things in daily life, then you must have romanticized the soothing pleasure of a metro ride. We travel through the metro every day, for our work commute or to go to college. Life without the Metro in a city like Delhi would be unimaginable. Ever wondered what it takes to maintain such consistency of highest precision to make Delhi Metro a success every day? The technicalities behind the whole system and even how did such a grand idea come into being? Well, the curious knowledge seekers, dig in.

Life in a Metro, the joy it brings, Source: Pinterest

To achieve such the highest precision of service for so long is no joke. It’s the result of the hard work and elaborate planning of the professionals who make the dream of making Delhi a metropolitan possible, and that too with such outstanding performance and dedication.

Every day we listen to and read millions of news, crimes committed in the national capital which leaves us disturbed and silent for ages. But to have heard a mishappen occurred due to the malfunction of the DMRC? Expect some desperate soul choosing the metro rail to end his life, creating a dramatic episode, now and then. Never.

So next time you get on a metro, do feel grateful and proud of every metro staff, from the drivers to the staff who makes the various congestions occurring at the station, untangle swiftly. Salute them, they are no less than soldiers who make India called a top-notch country from the mouth of tourists who visit the country. The staff are humans who make such a dream possible with their labor, every day, every hour.

Inside a Metro couch, Source: Pinterest

Shahdara Metro Station, the first ever metro station to be completed in 2002, Source: Pinterest

It was first in 1969, just decades after India’s independence that the idea of conceiving a ‘Mass Rapid Transit (MRT)’ was put forward. The main purpose was to find a solution to eradicate the growing concern of carbon emissions and traffic at the center by introducing such an efficient citizen transport system, resembling the bullet train running swiftly in other countries like Japan and China. The local trains running as part of the Mumbai Transport system were an inspiration, but the motive was to devise a system more organized and immaturely maintained.

In 1984, a rough structure for starting the construction of the Delhi Metro based on four phases was born. The current metro construction carried on around Dwarka and Gurgaon is the result of this full-proof structure plan passed way back in the 1980s. Till now, the construction of only three phases has been accomplished. The third phase was completed successfully in mid-2022, while the construction of the 4rth Phase would be commenced by early 2023.

The concept of DMRC was eventually pitched forward, in which the Government of India and the Government of Delhi hold equal equity, which means equal power and say in the running of the metro by both parties. With the idea approved by the majority of the masterminds, a rough sketch was drawn, DMRC would comprise a careful mixture of underground and elevated stations, fitted in such a way as not to disrupt the road transportation of the city. The first ever elevated station to become functional was the metro’s first-ever journey, undertaken on the Red Line, from Shahdara to Tis Hazari station on 25th December 2002. A lavish and highly anticipated gift to the national capital of the country.

The first underground service on the yellow line was started on 20th December 2004, from Vishwavidyala to Kashmere Gate. And so with time, in a matter of almost two decades, DMRC became fully functional, covering a length of 348.12 Km, consisting of ten color-coded lines, strewn around the satellite cities of Ghaziabad, Noida, Gurgaon, NCR, etc. A metro makes approx. 2700 trips daily, functioning smoothly from 5:00 Am to 11:30 PM every day. As of 2019, DMRC achieved to become part of the United Nations convention, for its success in reducing carbon emissions by 6,30,000 tonnes every year. Hence the motive for which DMRC came into existence has been achieved and so Delhi Metro continues to flourish.

Humans are stuck in their everyday haul. It’s a cycle that sometimes seems friendly and sometimes equally suffocating. The daily trips to live the same life. To wake up in the mornings, dress up and play a part the whole day never remains constant but creates the same level of absurdities in our mind which makes us eerily desire a holiday in the mountains, or perhaps just a lazy day in bed watching most postponed movies.

But comfort is something one can never get in abundance. And somehow most of us find a loophole in the same frustrating pattern of life, a bout of fresh air or the prospect of an adventurous metro ride before we reach our offices or colleges or whatever stone structure of tyranny which are crucial but equally torrential.

Our days always follow the same design. But somehow a car ride, or in the case of metropolitan cities, a metro ride fashioned as our daily commute can be looked upon as a prospect of change, a distraction from the everyday haul, as we just sit in our cozy little metal chairs and looked upon the dreamy sequence of our busy, beautiful city as our metro passes by. Soon our station will come and this will be over. Yes, there are a million ways to romanticize morbid trivial episodes from our daily life and I chose to romanticize Delhi Metro, by opening a window of facts, a little chic story all about the birth of the Metro service in Delhi.

For those who moved to Delhi citing a purpose from small towns mainly, Delhi Metro holds a charm for them that wouldn’t be brushed off even after a million rides. Yes, there are other metropolitan cities in the country with their respective Metro functioning smoothly, Delhi Metro holds an allure which unmatchable, even though it’s the second largest Metro service in the country after Kolkata Metro.

Whenever one sits on the metro one can't help wondering how this large and complex infrastructure of ‘The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) came to fruition, and the fluidity with which it has been running successfully since 2002 is remarkable and deserves to be applauded. So let's start from the very start.