Model metro

For a long time, Delhi was symbolic of the country's deepening urban transportation problems. Public bus services rapidly declining in quantity and quality, and rapacious taxi and three-wheeler drivers pushed people to two kinds of solutions.

One was unregulated private provision, stretching from cycle rickshaws to "chartered" buses. The other was own vehicles""motorcycles and cars, whose sales have been booming.

The combination of these solutions resulted in increasing congestion and dwindling safety, not to mention higher costs of transportation and increased air pollution. The scenario was hardly reflective of a country on the move.

Over the last couple of years, though, the picture has changed somewhat. Unsafe and congested traffic is still very much the norm, but for increasing parts of the city an alternative has become available ""the Delhi metro.

Last week, a critical stretch of the 64-km-long first phase was put into operation, bringing the central business district into the network. About 33 km are now functional and another 30 km should be so by December.

Although Kolkata has had a metro system for many years now, it is relatively small""16.5 km long, with an additional 8.5 km under construction.

Additionally, the Kolkata metro is operated by the Eastern Railways, while the Delhi system is operated by a special company set up for the purpose and jointly owned by the central and state governments.

The central government has pushed the Delhi model for other large cities, offering to provide 50 per cent of the equity capital needed to get the project going.

In the process, it is, explicitly or implicitly, advocating a dedicated organisation, pricing for cost recovery and an integrated transport management framework for the city as a whole (which Delhi does not yet have).

Has Delhi now become a symbol for a resurgent urban transport sector, paving the way for solutions that emerging metropolises across the country can be pro-active on?

There are some general lessons that emerge from the Delhi experience. A dedicated organisation that is not burdened by its legacy and is able to bring state-of-the-art skills to the implementation of the project is clearly a must.

One of the positive aspects of the Delhi system is how little disruption it caused to daily life while executing complex construction tasks, both underground and overground.

Project implementation within cost and time boundaries is now established. Whether pricing, which was intended to recover costs, actually does so will become clear over the next few months.

But whether a system of this kind is the best for all cities remains a question. The choice of the system must obviously be consistent with each city's present and future.

There is a large menu of alternatives to choose from and each city must ensure a transparent and fair decision-making process.

Once the choice is made, however, Delhi's experience unquestionably provides a model and a benchmark for other cities to emulate. All the parties involved can take credit for that.