E-Paper
Debate goes underground
The relentless speed of the Delhi Metro project has spawned fast track clearances that exclude any debate on environmental or urban matters. In the process, Delhi could be ruined.
The relentless speed of the Delhi Metro project has spawned fast track clearances that exclude any debate on environmental or urban matters. In the process, Delhi could be ruined.
The Metro as a holy cow is an image tied with our desire to make it to the world’s high table. Yet, so great are the insecurities of our past and so dazzling the dream spun by our dream-makers, that our middle-class euphoria will not allow debate on this shiny symbol of our coming of age. Since the media mirror this euphoria, there is an effective silence of alternative voices and only the Metro story gets told repeatedly.
Projects of this magnitude are globally subject to intense public scrutiny over years before they commence. They are fully coordinated and integrated with traffic projections, road surveys or future interventions like underpasses or flyovers. Yet, the relentless speed of this Rs 40,000 crore project spawns fast track clearances intolerant of public debate. This means no environmental or urban impact assessment reports in the public domain, no citizen participation and no public expert urban planning review. In short, there is no ‘people power’ in shaping this radical change in our lives.
The irony is that those who want to question the Metro are no ‘anti- progress’ Leftist jholawallas who stall our airport upgradation, labour laws, etc. In fact, just the opposite. The Metro debate actually centres on the quality and design limitations of the Metro and says that it doesn’t match global standards enough — that in our unquestioning eagerness, we are accepting a third rate version of it that the world has moved far ahead of; and that we have absolutely no plans in place for the colossal post-construction changes it will bring to our lives.
For visitors and residents, Delhi’s unmistakable USP is its ‘greenery and wide roads’. This USP could be gone forever once the Four- Phase Metro is up in the next ten years. Every single arterial road will be covered with Elevated Metro tracks. Trees will be visible only from the top, trunks from below. Concrete pillars will be the new trees of Delhi for the next hundred years.
If you think that’s an exaggeration, consider this. The Elevated Metro will span over 205 kilometres of Delhi’s arterial roads. That’s more than the distance to Agra! The Delhi government wants to pass a 69-km Elevated Ring Road and 35 new flyovers. The total comes to almost 350 kms of Elevated Traffic Solutions. This is the most gigantic urban intervention of our lives.
These 350-odd kms of Elevated Tracks open the backdoor to explosive commercial pressure from the Haldirams and MG Ones that will make a mockery of the Supreme Court’s mighty efforts to protect residential, environmental and heritage areas. The DDA is all set to legalise this commercialisation. Our automatic sanction of the Metro will allow these developments unquestioningly by passing up critical analysis in the public domain.
Let’s look 20 years ahead when the Metro’s unplanned impact starts pinching. Here are some possible examples: a massive influx of migrants pouring in with easy access for jobs, entertainment and leisure; explosive mall and office growth for them along 350 kms of Elevated Tracks; unauthorised construction, concrete/generator sets in the local parks; heavy crowds around stations; unauthorised parking… the list is endless. Our obedient approach to ‘progress’ could bury a 3,000-year-old city under a heap of concrete.
Projections say 22 million people will live in Delhi by 2021. It’s clear we have to make some hard choices. Yet, these hard choices don’t have to be unbalanced and reckless. If transport is our top priority, it cannot be our only priority. An 83 per cent Elevated Metro is a reckless choice, not a balanced one. The Underground-Elevated mix has to be much more equitable. What are the choices for this balanced approach?
Evolving important ‘Delhi Criteria’ could be a first step. These would determine where Underground is essential and where Elevated could be tolerated. For instance, areas close to the Ridge, the riverfront, the airport approach, heritage and environmental zones should be automatically sanctioned underground tracks. Planning experts should determine this at the planning stage — and not at the implementation stage, when contracts have been awarded and nothing can be done.
Ensuring people get as good a deal as history and nature allow could be the next step. Low-rise residential areas must have a say in determining whether an Elevated Metro should slash through their neighbourhoods, cramp roads with giant stations or concrete pillars, invite instant commercialisation or instead go Underground. Slower construction speeds could allow time for debating important questions. For example: do all routes need a subsidised, heavy investment Metro? Could some be completed three years later to regenerate costs for better underground tracks, etc?
Today, we are starting what the world is ending. Elevated systems are an outdated Fifties practice and cities all over — Cologne, Dusseldorf, Seoul, Boston, to name just a few — are spending billions to dismantle these clumsy dinosaurs. Is it desirable to introduce this mediocre system that could be an embarrassing white elephant 20 years later? Should cheap costs be the priority and not lasting quality of life?
