Fast and Furious

The Metro railway system offers the public a cost-effective, time-saving and comfortable journey. The residents of the metropolitan cities of India, such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgaon, Jaipur and Hyderabad have had facilities with this superfast public transportation system for several years. No doubt the metro railway system in India has changed public transportation into a newer dimension.

General History and Course of Development 

The History of the Indian Metro Railway starts with its first inception in Kolkata in 1984. The first metro line in Kolkata was completely underground from Dumdum to Tollygunge. Since then, the metro railway system in Kolkata has been expanded and developed. The civil engineer ElattuvalapilSreedharan played a big role and took a serious responsibility to bring an epoch-making change in the transportation history of India by implementing the metro railway planning successfully.

The modern metro railway system was first developed in Delhi in 2002. In 2013, Gurgaon became the third metro holding city, having a privately run metro system, namely Rapid Metro Rail Gurgaon.

There are two gauges that the Indian metro railway uses, the broad gauge and the standard gauge. However, during the early days of its inception, the metro railway in cities like Kolkata and Delhi were using the broad gauge. But later on, the metros were being run by the standard gauge. Even the metros in the cities like Mumbai and Bangalore have witnessed the use of broad gauges. The metro networks began their operation in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2017 in Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad respectively. Currently, there are 18 cities where the metro rails run, which is expected to run in 25 cities by 2025, as the government of India has planned for its modern urbanisation programmes and schemes.  Driverless automated metros have also been introduced in Delhi in 2021.

There are several other states in India, where the construction of the metro network is under process. The Uttar Pradesh Metro Authorities, in this regard have carried out a beautiful work in less than a decade that there are several cities like Agra, Meerut, Lucknow, Bareilly, Varanasi et cetera, who are accessing the metro facility. The formation and the development of the metro railway system have brought a revolutionary change not only in the transportation network and system in India but also showcased how much innovation and creativity can be developed. Hence it’s a mark of an unprecedented technological development that India has been achieving for the past four decades.