Elattuvalapil Sreedharan committee to be constituted by Union Government to lay down standards for metro rail systems in country

Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the proposal of setting up of a committee to lay down standards for metro rail systems in the country. The committee will be headed by E Sreedharan, who is also known as the ‘Metro Man’. The aim of this move is to cut costs in the construction and operation of metro rail systems in the country and bring them under the Make in India umbrella. Besides recommending standardisation norms for various components, the Sreedharan committee will also suggest ways to indigenize metro components that are currently imported. The standards, once finalised by the committee, will be mandatory for all metro projects coming up with central assistance. Elattuvalapil Sreedharan is a retired Indian Engineering Service (IES) officer who has served as the managing director of Delhi Metro from 1995 to 2012. Currently, metro projects with a total length of 370km are operational in eight cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Kochi and Mumbai.