Delhi Metro: An "imperfect boon"!!

n the year 1995, the Government of India and the Government of Delhi jointly set up the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) in 1995. The construction started in 1998, and the first section, on the Red Line, opened in 2002, followed by the Yellow Line in 2004, the Blue Line in 2005, its branch line in 2009, the Green and Violet Lines in 2010. Subsequently, these lines have been extended and new lines are under construction in Phase II of the project, including the Delhi Airport Metro Express whose opening has been postponed until January 2011 due to safety concerns. Despite all of the delays in opening, the Airport Express Line finally opened on February 23, 2011.
The Delhi Metro is a rapid transit system serving Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida in the National Capital Region of India. The network consists of six lines with a total length of 189.63 kilometers (117.83 mi) with 142 stations of which 35 are underground. It has a combination of elevated, at-grade and underground lines and uses both broad gauge and standard gauge rolling stock. Delhi Metro is being built and operated by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC). As of November 2010, DMRC operates around 2,700 trips daily between 6:00 and 23:00 running with an interval of 2.5 minutes between trains at peak frequency. The trains have four coaches, but there are plans to shift to six coach trains to increase capacity. The power output is supplied by 25-kilovolt, 50 Hertz alternating current through overhead catenaries. The metro has an average daily ridership of 1.5 million commuters, and, as of August 2010, had carried over 1.25 billion commuters since its inception.
The metro services are definitely a big boon to the commuters of Delhi. The metro has contributed to reduction in pollution and has also contributed to considerable relief in the macro traffic chaos on the roads of Delhi. Metro is safer than other means of transport in Delhi, especially for women. The recent introduction of exclusive women coaches in the metro promise more security to the female commuters. Metro is not only safer but it is even cost effective and time saving.
Though Delhi metro has proven to be a successful mode of conveyance in the national capital but as they say...every entity comprises both the aspects...positive as well as negative. Same is the case with metro services in Delhi.
There have been certain accidents during the construction period of metro. On October 19, 2008, a girder launcher and a part of the overhead Blue Line extension under construction in Laxmi Nagar, East Delhi collapsed and fell on passing vehicles underneath. Workers were lifting a 400-tonne concrete span of the bridge with the help of a crane when the launcher collapsed along with a 34 meters (112 ft) long span of the bridge on top of a Blue line bus killing the driver and a laborer. On July 12, 2009, a portion of a bridge under construction collapsed when its launching girder lost balance as it was being erected at Zamrudpur, near East of Kailash, on the Central Secretariat – Badarpur corridor. Six people were killed and 15 others injured. The day after, on July 13, 2009, a crane that was removing the debris collapsed, and with a bowling pin effect collapsed two other nearby cranes, injuring six. On July 22, 2009 a steel beam fell on a worker at the under-construction Ashok Park Metro station, killing him. Over a hundred people, including 93 workers, have died since work on the metro began in 1998.

As the network has expanded, high ridership and technical snags in new trains have led to increasing instances of overcrowding and delays on the Delhi Metro. To alleviate the problem, orders for new coaches have been placed and an increase in the frequency of trains has been proposed. Infrequent, overcrowded and erratic feeder bus services connecting stations to nearby localities have also been reported as an area of concern. In 2010, severe overcrowding on the Yellow Line, which connects the north and south campuses of Delhi University, was reported to be a reason for students missing or reporting late for classes.


Crowd in Delhi metro has increased to a very chaotic and perturbing level. The Metro ferries around 950,000 commuters daily on its nearly 190-km network. During peak travel hours that last till 8.30 p.m. around 16 customer service executives’ men are present on platforms to direct crowds, later this number reduces to four. As far as the harried commuter is concerned, it is becoming a mess by the day. As more and more people are using the metro for their daily use, the fact of the matter is that the metro has run out of space and commuters are turning rude in their behavior as the time is passing by.
The DMRC is consistently improvising the conditions in Delhi metro. Significant steps have been taken in theses contexts like introduction of smart cards to reduce queues at the token counters, introduction of women coaches and addition of extra coaches on busy routes. Delhi metro is a boon for delhites and it can definitely attain the level of perfection by the co-operation of commuters and alert steps by the authorities.


So, wake up Delhi…be co-operative and disciplined commuters and help the authorities build up the Delhi metro into a “perfect boon”.

India's bane-malnutrition, America's pain- obesity..

India's bane is malnutrition. America's pain is obesity. The United States is home to the heaviest people in the world. India has the most undernourished populace. Between these broad generalisations lie stories, heartening and disheartening, of changing culinary mores and dietary habits tied to income and awareness, tradition and modernity.

Let's take the US first. A staggering one-third of American adults are now considered obese. Obesity among adults has increased by 60 per cent within the past 20 years and trebled among children in the past 30 years. Obesity-related deaths have climbed to more than 3, 00, 000 a year, second only to tobacco-related deaths. The fat are truly in the line of fire. Corpulent folk are huffing their way to join smokers in the public doghouse.

The reasons for US "fat-ricide" aren't far to seek - it's close to the couch. It was on supine display last weekend on Super Bowl Sunday when Americans were reported to have consumed an average of 2, 769 calories - more than a day's requirement - in a single four-hour sitting. A hundred million pounds of chicken wings, thirty million slices of pizza, 25 million pounds of chips and pop corn, 8 million pounds of guacamole and other dips, all went down the hatch, washed down with copious amounts of beer and wine. Burp re burp.

Okay, so it was an exceptional day, next only to Thanksgiving in terms of gluttony. But American daily habits aren't any better. A sedentary lifestyle topped with fastfood, microwave dinners, grub that is refined, processed, packaged, preserved, and replete with salt, sugar/starch, hydrogenated oils, and preservatives, is the norm. Fewer Americans cook than ever before;fast-food and take-out are mainstream;and food is manufactured, distributed, and sold on an industrial scale.

Urban India is following suit. Shining India is now dining out India. Fast food restaurants, supermarkets lined with packaged foods, sedentary lifestyle...heard that before? We are embracing the American lifestyle with much the same ardour - and results. Worse. Because while the American routine is inviting heart disease, hypertension, diabetes etc, turns out we Indians are genetically pre-disposed to these diseases, even without the excesses. (Meanwhile, Americans indulged in a feeding frenzy for a day on Super Bowl Sunday;we'll do it over the next several weeks during World Cup Cricket. )

The sorry part here is that the poor and the underprivileged of America are the biggest victims of this obesity epidemic - unlike in India, where it is the rich and ignorant who are waddling down this route. Fat accomplices come from poor states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Blacks have 51 per cent higher prevalence of obesity, and Hispanics have 21 per cent higher, compared with whites. That's because mass-manufactured fast food and packaged food distributed on an industrial scale is the cheapest. Fresh food is hideously expensive in comparison.

So relatively wealthy Americans, homing in to locally grown, organic foods, are hung up on healthy, even as the nouveau riche in India (and the poor in America) are on the fast track to obesity. Rich Americans are now discovering exotic, fibre-filled, nutrient-rich grains such as quinoa, buckwheat, wild rice, sorghum (jowar), pearl millet (bajra), finger millet (ragi) - grains which much of India has forsaken because they are considered food of the poor. In the US, local farmers' markets are flourishing, patronised by progressive, enlightened, and typically welloff Americans. More and more Indians are lining up before McDonalds, Pizza Hut and sundry fast food haunts on their march to portly prosperity.

All these developments come at a time when a number of studies have shown that eating sparingly can extend life span and slow down aging. In fact, while there are gluttonous Americans who consume 6, 000 calories a day, some rich faddists have dropped down to a 600 calorie intake in search of eternal youth. In India though, prosperity is still linked to eating copiously. Food security is two square meals (do waqt ka khana) a day.

But health experts are unanimous that between too much food and too little, both of questionable nutrient value, India is now an unhealthy country. The poor are battling malnutrition as their traditional diets based on nutrient-rich whole grains and fresh vegetables are being upturned. The rich are courting lifestyle diseases such as heart attacks and diabetes by imitating Western habits and eating poor quality food. A recent World Bank report noted that eliminating heart disease, diabetes and other noncommunicable illnesses could add between 4 per cent and 10 per cent to India's GDP. Alas, we seem intent on producing a different kind of Gross Domestic Product.