[sustran] Was the Delhi Metro ever for the people?

[Vinay Baindur]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/was-the-delhi-metro-ever-for-the-people/story-YGsGBrfd0VzPI1Ycyi5u7M.html



Was the Delhi Metro ever for the people?Each fare hike will make the Delhi
Metro less ‘for the people’, even if there will always be a Metro-riding
public. But, the less subsidised it is the more ‘anti-people’ it will become
OPINION <http://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/> Updated: Oct 23, 2017
13:01 IST
[image: Rashmi Sadana]
Rashmi Sadana
[image: One could argue that the Metro project was always inherently
‘anti-people’; it was a massive, top-down infrastructure laid onto the city
with great care in terms of its engineering and ‘world-class’ production
values, but less care in terms of its sustainability and coordination with
the city itself]
One could argue that the Metro project was always inherently ‘anti-people’;
it was a massive, top-down infrastructure laid onto the city with great
care in terms of its engineering and ‘world-class’ production values, but
less care in terms of its sustainability and coordination with the city
itself(Vipin Kumar/HT)

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The recent and inevitable Delhi Metro fare hike raises a number of issues,
though none of them are new. For those of us who use it, the way we
traverse and even think about the city will never be the same. There is no
going back now, but the question the fare hike raises is how to go forward?

>From the start, researchers at the TRIPP Institute at IIT Delhi showed
through precise economic modelling and comparative public transport
analysis that the Delhi Metro would not be a sustainable form of transport
compared to, say, investing big time in the city’s bus infrastructure. ‘Big
time’ does not mean a six-kilometre stretch of bus rapid transit (BRT), but
rather an integrated system of transport that both expands and greatly
improves what was there before.

One could argue that the Metro project was always inherently ‘anti-people’;
it was a massive, top-down infrastructure laid onto the city with great
care in terms of its engineering and ‘world-class’ production values, but
less care in terms of its sustainability and coordination with the city
itself. It was a largely Japanese-funded, diplomat-negotiated,
transnational global production. In fact, ‘the people’ were mostly not
consulted, and people in the city’s other urban and transport agencies most
often didn’t speak to one another, and certainly didn’t work together when
it came to Metro planning. Many argued this was the secret to the DMRC’s
success.

Now, in addition to ‘the people’, with the arrival of the Metro, we have a
new idea of ‘the public’. This Metro-riding public has demands of its own,
as it should. Political parties naturally will want to speak to and for
this public, however accurately or inaccurately. Most people will let them;
but it is this public that will have to assert its claim on the Metro and
the city for anything to change, and for the future of the Metro system to
be as they would like it – efficiently and safely run, affordable,
integrated, maybe even beautiful. This will be the challenge and will
require the city’s transport and environment-related NGOs and urban
research organisations to be at the table — whether with politicians or the
DMRC, but ideally both.

The Delhi Metro has become a lifeline for so many in the National Capital
Region — across income-levels and geographical boundaries. But ‘lifeline’
carries with it a requirement of sustainability. The Delhi Metro, at least
compared to malls and other world-class spaces in the city, is more ‘of the
people’ since it is not a space of consumption but rather offers a range of
experiences to more kinds of people than most other urban projects.

I’m not arguing for or against this fare hike; I’m sure there has to be
one, and I’m sure this one won’t be the last. It’s also true that each fare
hike will make the Delhi Metro less ‘for the people’, even if there will
always be a Metro-riding public. The Metro will also likely never be
sustainable, even if the DMRC increases its property and other commercial
schemes. Metro systems are extremely expensive to run and maintain, and the
less subsidised they are (or become) the more ‘anti-people’ they will also
become. But this was also engrained in the very idea of the Metro from the
beginning; how could it be otherwise?

In the course of my research on the Delhi Metro, I have talked to hundreds
of Metro riders, and for at least two-thirds of them affordability is a key
issue in their decision to take the Metro. What makes the Metro a lifeline
is precisely its ability to serve the majority of city-dwellers. If not,
the very premise of the Metro disappears. This raises a larger issue that
goes beyond transport. Who does government represent — visible publics or
people of all stripes and income-levels? More dramatically, who lives and
who does not?

This contradiction is precisely what becoming ‘world-class’ entails. To
have those amenities that put Delhi on par with cities around the world; to
have people experience the awesome compression of time and space that
Metro-riding affords; and yet to have a city that becomes ever more
exclusive for an expanding, elevated public.

*Rashmi Sadana teaches at George Mason University*

*The views expressed are personal*