Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, a retired officer of the Indian Engineering Service (IES), is popularly known as the “Metro Man”. This civil engineer has been pioneering infrastructure projects for over 50 years. He is widely credited for changing the face of public transport in India under his government, building the Konkan Railway, Delhi Metro, Cochin Metro and several other large infrastructure projects. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2001 and the Padma Bhushan in 2008.
Wiki/Biography
E. Sreedharan was born on Sunday, June 12, 1932 (now 88 years old; 2021) in the Ponnani Madras Presidency of British India (now Palakkad district of Kerala). His zodiac sign is Gemini. Sreedharan completed his schooling from the Basel Evangelical Mission High School in Palakkad and later joined Victoria College in Palghat. He obtained a degree in civil engineering from the Government Engineering College in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. After completing his engineering studies, the cosmopolitan started his career as a lecturer in civil engineering at the Kerala Institute of Technology, Kozhikode. There, he taught the subject of civil engineering. In 1953, he passed the Indian Engineering Service (IES) examination and was appointed as a trainee assistant engineer in the Southern Railway in December 1954. Thereafter, he went to the Bombay Port Authority as an apprentice and joined the Engineer Service of the Indian Railways in 1954.
appearance
Height (approximate): 5′ 10″
Eye Color: Brown
Hair color: Black
Family and caste
Sridharan was born into a Hindu family. His father is Neelakandan Moosath and his mother is Ammaluamma.
Sreedharan’s wife is Radha Sreedharan.
E Sreedharan and his wife at their residence in Ponnani, Kerala
The couple has four children. The eldest son Ramesh is one of the vice presidents of Tata Consultancy Services. The daughter Shanthi Menon runs a school in Bangalore. Another son Achyuth Menon is a doctor in the UK. The youngest son M. Krishnadas works for ABB India Ltd.
Profession
civil Engineering
In 1954, he was recruited as an Assistant Engineer in the Indian Railway Engineering Service (IRES) after passing the UPSC exam. He retired in 1990 as a Member (Engineering) of Railway Board and Ex-officio Secretary to the Government of India, after 30 years of service in the organization. However, the government gave him an extension of tenure and appointed him as the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the Konkan Railway. He worked there for seven years, after which, in 1997, he was appointed as the General Manager of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). In December 2011, at the age of 79, he retired from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) after completing two phases of the Delhi Metro. Prior to this, he had dedicated 57 years to public service and all he wanted was a quiet solitary life. However, the government still needed him and, therefore, his tenure was further extended. He was given the responsibility of overseeing the Kochi Metro (built in four years), Kozhikode and Trivandrum monorails, the construction of tracks for the South Western High Speed Railway, and several other metro projects. The 81-year-old took on these new challenges with the same determination he had shown when he joined the Indian Railways six decades ago, resuming his non-stop travelling work life.
Some of the major contributions of E Sreedharan to the development of infrastructure in India:
Rameshwaram Pamban Bridge: One of the peculiarities of Indian bureaucrats is that most of them fail to complete their work within the stipulated deadlines and funds. However, this was not the case with the projects led by Sridharan. He first came to the world’s attention in 1964 when he rebuilt the Pamban Bridge after it was destroyed by a cyclone. Although he had six months to complete the daunting task, he restored the bridge to normal working condition in just 46 days. The then Indian Railways Ministry gave him a cash reward of Rs. 1,000.
Rameshwaram Pamban Bridge
Kolkata Metro Project: In 1970, he was responsible for the design and planning of the Kolkata Metro, India’s first metro project. He participated in the project despite having little knowledge of metro systems. He spent four days studying a model of Tokyo’s subway lines; as a result, Kolkata built a world-class metro system. He led the project for five years, until 1975.
Cochin Shipyard Limited: He was briefly the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Cochin Shipyard from October 1979 to November 1980. Under his leadership, the shipyard commissioned its first ship, MV Rani Padmini, which was launched the following year (1981).
Rani Padmani, a 75,000 ton bulk carrier
Konkan Railway Project: Next up is the Konkan Railway Project, an epic in the history of Indian railways. Building the Konkan Railway presented a host of difficulties to the engineers tasked with the project. The rocky Sahayadri Mountains had to be crossed, bridges had to be built across valleys, and more than 1,500 rivers had to be forded. The entire project covered 760 km of track with around 2,000 bridges and 93 tunnels. The railway starts from Mangalore in the south and stretches to the town of Roha in Maharashtra, crossing the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats. This grandiose project, considered mission impossible since the British era, was completed in just seven years and three months under Sreedharan’s leadership. This is perhaps an incredible pace of construction in a country where it takes years to build a flyover.
Delhi Metro Project: The Delhi Metro, India’s most modern metro line, is one of his greatest achievements. Sreedharan was given the title of “Metro Man” by the media for his great achievements. He was the Managing Director of the Delhi Metro Corporation from 1997 to 2011 and was responsible for the construction of Delhi Metro Phase I (65.11 km) and Phase II (124.9 km). Below are two interviews given by Sreedharan at different times in which he explains the construction of Delhi Metro.
In politics
On February 25, 2021, 88-year-old E Sreedharan officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and made his first foray into politics. He joined the party during the BJP’s Victory Day meeting in Changaramkulam. After joining the party, the senior civil engineer said, “This is one of the greatest moments of his life.”
Metropolitan E. Sreedharan and Kerala BJP president K. Surendran receive garlands after formally joining the BJP
On March 4, 2021, the BJP nominated Sreedharan as its candidate for Chief Minister of Kerala. He contested the 2021 Kerala Legislative Assembly elections from the Palakkad constituency and lost to the incumbent MP Shafi Parambil of the Indian National Congress. On October 7, 2021, the BJP elected him as a member of the BJP National Executive Committee. On December 16, 2011, Sreedharan expressed his dissatisfaction with the BJP while speaking to the media at his residence in Ponnani. He said,
Without changes, the BJP will not be able to make any progress in Kerala.”
He added,
“I did not enter politics as an active politician, I entered politics as a bureaucrat. I entered politics when I was old. I could have served the country in many ways before.”
Books on E Shreedharan’s Biography
There are many articles and stories on the Internet summarizing his illustrious career. But there are two books that detail his life and contain rare information not only about his career, but also about the personal life of this metropolitan man.
- Railwayman of India: A Biography of E. Sreedharan, by Rajendra B. Aklekar.
- Karmayogi: A Biography of E. Sreedharan by Ms. Ashoka.
Books by E Sreedharan
- Restoring Values: The Key to Integrity, Ethical Behavior, and Good Governance (2004)
- History textbook, 500 BC to 2000 AD (2010)
Awards and Honors
- Railway Minister Award (1963)
- Padma Shri awarded by the Indian Government (2001)
- Named Person of the Year by The Times of India (2002)
- Om Prakash Bhasin Award for Excellence in Engineering (2002)
- Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Jury Award for Leadership in Infrastructure Development (2002-03)
- Named one of Asia’s Heroes by Time magazine (2003)
- AIMA (All India Management Association) Award for Excellence in Public Service (2003)
- Received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
- Dr. Yelavarthy Nayudamma Memorial Award
- Bharat Shiromani Award from Shiromani Institute, Chandigarh (2005)
- Awarded the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government (2005)
- Qimpro Platinum Standard (Commercial) National Quality Statesman of India (2007)
- CNN-IBN 2007 Indian of the Year: Public Service (2008)
- Padma Bhumibol Adulyadej Awarded by the Indian Government (2008)
- PhD in Literature, Rajasthan Technical University, Kota, Rajasthan, 2009
- In 2009, he received his PhD (honorary) degree from IIT Roorkee.
- In 2012, he was named Newsperson of the Year by Manorama News.
- Sree Chithira Thirunal National Award, 2012
- Honorary SR Jindal Award 2012 from the Sitaram Jindal Foundation.
- In 2013, TKM School of Engineering awarded TKM the 60 Plus Lifetime Achievement Award.
- Mahamaya Technological University awards first Doctor of Science (honoris causa) degree (2013)
- Rotary International Honor Award (2013)
- Greaves Award for Lifetime Achievement in Governance (2013)
- KPP Nambiar Award from IEEE Kerala Chapter (2017)
- Received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Republic Open Magazine (2019)
Facts/Trivia
- One of the hallmarks of Sreedharan’s projects is that none of them were tainted with corruption.
- With his experience and skills, he can succeed anywhere. E Sreedharan could easily earn a salary 50 times higher than the government income while heading the Delhi Metro project.
- His determination and loyalty to his work can be seen through a number of real-life situations and decisions he made. For example, the 1974 National Railway Strike: a 20-day strike by 1.7 million workers was probably the largest railway strike in India to date. But at the time, Sreedharan was busy designing the metro network in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and refused to stop working.
- In 2015, Metro Sreedharan was also appointed by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a member of the UN High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport (HLAG-ST) for a three-year term from 2015 to 2018.
- In 2019, the Governor’s Government of Jammu and Kashmir appointed E Sreedharan as the chief consultant for the construction of two mass rapid transit systems in Jammu and Srinagar.
- A biographical film Rama Sethu based on the life of Sreedharan is in the works and is expected to hit the screens soon. The film is being directed by VK Prakash and written by S Suresh Babu.
- He is a vegetarian and strongly opposes eating meat.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education