If what goes on in our government and politics sometimes depresses you, join me 70 feet below the corridors of power in the heart of New Delhi and meet my very inspirational guest today, Mr E. Sreedharan, who at 72 years is very young. He has a remarkable achievement, building not one but two showpiece projects already, and we don’t know how much more is to come. Mr Sreedharan welcome to Walk the Talk.Thank you very much.

Nice to meet you. I must say there are not many Indians who’ve done their own business of walking the talk as you have done — Konkan Railway Corporation and now this marvel called Delhi Metro. We are now in a tunnel about 70 ft below the surface in central Delhi, and we should be, as of now, somewhere between Rail Bhavan and ... ... between Patel Chowk and Connaught Place.

So right under the corridors of power ... It must’ve been quite a job to build this and build this ahead of schedule.Well, it has been a great challenge. But it was a pleasure also in doing this sort of work. When you find things are taking shape. That is a real satisfaction, professional satisfaction.

Tell me more about this tunnel, what kind of technological challenges did you have in building this? This section seems to be more or less complete as far as tunnelling is concerned?This tunnel has been constructed with a specially-made machine called the earth-pressure balanced tunnel shade. It is an important machine. This machine has got great capability, it is for the first time a machine of this type has been used in this country. That too in a very crowded city.

At minimum inconvenience to people ...Minimum inconvenience to people and minimum disturbance to surface life. There are buildings on top, there are roads on top, and when the tunnel was done, there’s been hardly any ...

The Government of India is being run just up there.Yes, that’s true.

But I think what you have between here and the government of India is Delhi’s water table.The water table is quite high here. Where we are standing now, the water is at least about 40 feet above us. But you find the tunnel absolutely dry.

How did you achieve that. Because even overseas sometimes you see in this kind of tunnel water dripping from all over.Mainly because of the quality in construction, the precision with which we have done all these segments. You can see these segments. When the segments are cast the precision has been to less than 0.5 millimetre in dimension, very high precision. To obtain this high precision, the moulds ... we had to import them from France. And then the supervision here.

You know, to achieve this precision in a system where quality is not a hallmark as far as manufacture, construction goes ... There were a lot of sceptical noises: Oh they’ll start building the tunnel from one end, they’ll reach somewhere else; Metro will lose its face ... But I believe you got it all right.We had, right from the beginning, quality in construction, safety in construction. These have been our watchwords. By the time we completed this tunnel, the alignments — horizontal alignment, vertical alignment — these had gone out only by 8-10 mm.

Eight to 10 mm over how much distance?This is about 1 km ... Not only that, the speed with which we had done this tunnel also ... the maximum speed we have achieved on this particular tunnel is something like 29 metres a day. Average will be about 12 metres a day.

29 metres per day! ... An average municipal corporation in India doesn’t even carpet that much of an old road or a potholed road in one day. How did you bring in this kind of efficiency?There are two aspects in this. One is the technical content in the work. The other is the administrative arrangements for bringing discipline and precision.

The technical expertise, to tell you very frankly, we didn’t have it at the start in India. So we had to engage consultants. But we learnt it very fast. In fact, today my engineers can teach something to the foreign consultants we have with us.

Your engineers have acquired all these skills. I am sure they must be in big demand overseas.Oh they are very hot in the market. Very jealously I am keeping them together.

They must be getting offers 10 times, 20 times of what they are getting paid.Easily, easily. I’ve already lost three of my real good experts. Multinationals come and just pick them up.

But they must be good ambassadors for you.But I am not being able to get them replaced.

In the past who knew India for manufacture or mega infrastructure projects ...But see, now they are serving some other country. They’ve got their training, their skills, their expertise here.

But you should see yourself as the Narayana Murthy of Indian infrastructure. What he has done for software in a way, I would say, you’ve done for infrastructure. Because this is a showpiece project. The fact that your people are so much in demand, the fact that it is happening ahead of schedule is remarkable.That’s one of the things we had decided right from the beginning. To tell you very frankly, when this project was handed over to us, the mandate was to finish in 10 years time.

On our own, we decided to compress the implementation period to seven years. Now we are working in all areas with a seven year completion time in view. And we are on time.

Mr Sreedharan, How much do you get paid for this? Oh! hardly anything. My salary is the same as the highest government paid man in this country.

That should be about Rs 38,000, 39,000 ...That’s all, that’s all ... basic ...

That means you are building a project of this size at a salary of less than $ 1000 a month?That’s true ...

And how much will you get paid if you did something like this for a private company or a project overseas?At least 50 to 60 times more.

And you are not complaining ... Oh, not at all.

But don’t you think if the government paid its good people more ... I know that you have a more detached outlook to this, and you are a builder ...It is difficult for the government to pay such high salaries because it is a huge organisation ... You know, such a large number of people.

And you retain such quality men. But temptation on your good people to go away must be great.Very much.

Because people have children, they have families ...Very much. But one thing again is the job satisfaction they get here, the exposure to technologies, and the work ethics. These they are valuing very much.

The other thing is that, you know, while wages may be less, I believe what you’ve done is, in a way, immunise them from other problems people working in the government have. Like corruption, inefficiency, politics, crossed-wires. Would you say that? Or would you just say that God’s been kind?No, there have been attempts to interfere in our method of working and all that. But we have stood firm. We have not allowed any of these considerations to affect our work style or the progress of the work.

But do you do some of that by absorbing a few of the tensions yourself or do you just use the strength of your personality to keep the trouble-makers at bay?It is basically at my own level. But I had one advantage. When I came to this project, I had come with a reputation. And that reputation helped me. They knew that here’s a man who means business, who’s not interested in anything else except completion of the work.

I suppose politicians now know, that at the end of the day, they can get somebody who will give them a showpiece project. They at least may be able to go to the elections with that, instead of trying to milk it to get their own people appointed or trying to give their own people contracts. Do you see a change in Indian politics?Very much, very much. In fact I have seen that in the initial stages I had this sort of problem, but today they appreciate it. They respect my style of working, the way I conduct business. And they find that results are showing, which is to their benefit. It gives them the credit.

Give me some examples of where you may have seen this change of mindset in politicians?Well, Konkan Railway ... Initially, politicians tried to interfere, they wanted to milk the project. Later when they found that this is not possible, they started respecting it.

Right. And I am sure they took advantage of it politically later when the project was done.Yes.

Which is fine by you. But doing DMRC have you had frustrating moments, difficult moments?There have been setbacks, there have been frustrations, but not very much. The main frustration I had was regarding the gauge that we need for this project. I was very keen to bring in the world standard, that’s the standard gauge. I tried my level best, I didn’t succeed.

But why did that not happen?Basically because of lot of rejection from the Railways. And the powers that be, they were not able to overrule the Railways’ objections.

But why was the Railways objecting? Was it just the case of the empire striking back?It is difficult to say, they had a number of arguments at that time. But none of the arguments is valid today. We had been telling them that these arguments are not valid, we should go for standard gauge, which is the world gauge. It has got a number of advantages. Somehow, these did not sink in.

Ultimately the Railways used a very unusual weapon. They said if it is going to be standard gauge, we’ll not be able to certify the system. Under the law, because we were at that time working under the Railway Act, that was the legal cover we had. They said we will not able to certify because we have no expertise in standard gauge. Which is also not true.

Given Indian Railway’s own safety record, it sounds a bit ironical that they should be giving a safety certificate for a project like this.Ultimately they did not give the certificate.

They did not?When the real time came, they abdicated the responsibility. The certificate has been given by the commissioner of Metro Rail Safety. The Railways passed on the responsibility.

So was this some kind of bureaucratic cold war?I would put it that way. Very unfortunate, but now it’s an old story.

It’s a matter of the past. But if there were stronger political leadership, they could have overruled it.Yes, they could have definitely overruled it.

So what were some of the other testing moments? Either technologically, or politically or commercially?The other period when we had a lot of pressure or stress was, you know, following the nuclear blasts. The Japanese government took a decision to suspend aid to the project. That was a very trying, anxious period for us. Fortunately we were able to get over it because of the sufficient funds the government made available.

The government commitment was there.Very much.

But haven’t you had pressures. Give contract to so and so, employ so and so ... the usual things that go on happening in India.Only in the initial stages. There was some pressure. But when it was realised that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation would not be influenced ...

But I believe you suffered a sizeable delay in the beginning, because of pressures by politicians who wanted to jam their foot into the contracting process.The very first major contract that we awarded, there was a lot of delay. We awarded the contract, gave the letter of acceptance. But it was stalled because the politicians wanted to change the contractor.

That put back the project by six months. Fortunately we have overtaken that delay now.

But the prime minister stood firm on that ...Yes, the prime minister stood firm. And particularly, the cabinet secretary and the bureaucrats who were asked to inquire, they took a very firm and just stand.

So that shows there’s justice in the system. If you dig in your heels and fight for what you think is right, there’s still something in the system that’ll support you.There is, there is ...

You build big projects like KRC, DMRC. There is land acquisition, there is technology, contractors, employment ... You run into all that is the worst in our system in politics and bureaucracy. So what is your tactic of dealing with them? Do you fight them, do you get around them, or do you reason with them?I would say that I stand firm in my convictions. I don’t budge just to please somebody else. That’s the main thing.

One important thing is professional competence. I don’t claim I have all the competence. But then I had the opportunity to collect people with competence. And once the team has got the professional competence then we are able to tackle any situation.

Are you trying to say that if you have it in you to build a showpiece and then if you stand firm and you are clean and you have your own courage of convictions, then the system does not mess with you beyond a point?No. Not at all.

Have you tested this?Yes, I have tested it in Konkan Railway. I have tested it.

Can you give me a couple of examples specifically when you tested this? I know this initial contract is one thing that delayed you six months, and you did not bend.One example is the Konkan Railway itself. I had a head-on collision with a minister because he wanted certain things to be done his way, and I said no.

Konkan Railway had another disability because it was a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Railways. So the rail minister had all the powers, control over me. But still I stood firm, and ultimately my stand was vindicated.

Give me an example from the Delhi Metro experience ... when you were forced to test the system.As I told you, the very first contract, the consultancy contract that we awarded was stalled by politicians for more than six months. But I said I will not change it.

How much was the amount of that contract?About Rs 230 crore.

And if you had once submitted to something like that, it would have been a chain reaction.Absolutely. If I had buckled at that time, then today I would have been a purse. Anybody could make use of me for anything.

That’s a good thing that has happened with us. Because in the old days, any official on a salary of Rs 38,000 building a multi-thousand crore project, who stood firm on things like this, would be called obstinate or unreasonable and difficult. And the system would gang up on him. Today, do you think things have changed?Things have changed ... There is appreciation for good work being done. There is appreciation from government level. There is appreciation from politicians for the results that we are achieving. There is appreciation from the whole nation.

Has the system really changed, has the politician really changed? Or is it because of the force of personality of someone like you or Mr Sheshan or Kiran Bedi that you are able to get things done?I personally think politicians have also changed. They want results. And my own personal experience here is whoever is in power — whether it is Congress or BJP — they are all very supportive of this project. And particularly from the lieutenant governor the type of support I am getting is marvellous.

I believe you run a very lean operation, most unlike the public sector.Right.

How many people do you employ?I have got two departments. One is the project organisation, which has about 400 people.

That’s all?That’s all. Then we have the operation and maintenance department, responsible for maintaining the stations, running the trains. That has about 600-650 people. That’s all.

With 1,000 people as permanent staff, you are building this, running this ... In a system where if we set up an inquiry commission, we employ 100 people. Because Indians are so given to bureaucracy.Right from the beginning we had in view that our organisation must be very small. Because that’s the only way to keep down the costs. For example in our office, we don’t have clerks.

No clerks?No clerks, no peons ... peons are there only for me and the directors.

The other officers have to pick up their own glass of water.Yes ... They have to get their own tea. There are tea vending machines.

Is it some kind of Japanese culture or your own?It’s borrowed from outside, no doubt. I want to bring that culture in our country also.

The Metro itself is building a culture. The way people keep it clean ...Yes, initially you had to educate the people, a mass education campaign had to be taken up.

Later we found people started owning the system, they feel proud of the system. They don’t dirty the area, they don’t spit in the station premises or within the trains. That ownership is very very visible now.

The staff who work with you marvel at the fitness you maintain, the calm on your face at 72. How do you maintain this?I have a very systematic life, very simple food. I have my normal hours of sleep. And I don’t carry my official worries home.

Your staff tells me your favourite line to them is you never got the time to grow old.That was earlier. Now I am feeling age creeping on me.

What do you plan to do after this? If you were given a chance, what is it you would like to fix in India?I am very keen to have this Metro culture in major cities. We have 14 cities in this country with a population of more than three million. Each of them needs a Metro.

Maybe one day we can see you getting involved in modernising Indian Railways.Well, Indian Railways definitely needs modernisation. But I don’t think I will be available for that.