Delhi will miss 'Metro Man' Sreedharan

Describing E Sreedharan as a man of great vision and impeachable integrity, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has said the Metro Man, who retires on Saturday, gave Delhi a "new identity" for which people of the city will always miss him.

Showering praise on Sreedharan for his contribution to the city as Managing Director of DMRC in the last 16 years, Dikshit said the technocrat transformed the whole public transport system and in the process changed the way Delhiites travel.

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"The whole city will miss him. My government will miss him. I do not have words to offer our gratitude to him for giving us a wonderful metro network which is now being followed as a model network by various world cities," Dikshit said.

The 79-year-old technocrat, who joined DMRC in 1995, has been credited with construction of 190 km network across the National Capital Region, which is now considered as fastest growing Metro network anywhere in the world.

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The metro currently ferries over 16 lakh passengers on week days through over 2,500 trips. "We owe a lot to Sreedharan. He has offered us one of the most reliable and modern metro network in the world.

He made the city more comfortable and we will remain thankful to Sreedharan for it," Dikshit said at a farewell dinner she hosted for the outgoing metro chief last night.

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Sreedharan was given four extension of services and earlier this year he had wriiten a letter to Dikshit asking her to find his successor well ahead of his retirement in December.

A high-level government panel had selected Mangu Singh, DMRC's Director who oversaw the construction of the high-speed Airport Metro Express, to succeed Sreedharan.

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Mangu Singh, a civil engineer from Roorkee University, was Sreedharan's choice to step into his  shoes as the DMRC Managing Director.

Singh is an Indian Railways Service of Engineers (IRSE) officer of the 1981 batch and worked with Sreedharan in the Kolkata Metro project.

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He has been associated with the Delhi Metro since its inception. Asked about phase III expansion of metro network, Dikshit said it would come up under the newly appinted DMRC chief.

Top officials said Sreedharan will not be associated with DMRC in any capacity after his retirement as envisaged earlier.