Delhi Underbelly

The doors and windows of businessman Sandeep Sharma8217;s house open out to the metro site. That8217;s perhaps why he8217;s kept them shut ever since work began on the Chawri Bazaar station in 2001. 8216;8216;The noise, the vibrations are so loud at night, I can8217;t even watch Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi properly,8217;8217; says an irritable Namita, Sandeep8217;s wife. Graver than this evening interference are her health concerns. The dust from the site has aggravated her asthma.

On the Sharmas8217; living room wall, there8217;s a slight crack and a small red noting next to it, made by metro officials on an inspection. But she draws consolation from the fact that it will all be over by 2005 and that longterm benefit will outweigh temporary discomfort. 8216;8216;It will end soon and then we can use the metro. It will be a big help,8217;8217; says Namita.

It has already been a help to the 100,000 commuters who travel on it every day between Shahdara and Inder Lok.

Lawyer Narendra Kumar Verma8217;s work often takes him from Shahdara to Tees Hazari. He remembers how he hated the long, loud bus journeys. 8216;8216;The conductors would keep hitting the sides of the bus, stopping all the time to pick up passengers. Now I use the metro, It8217;s so comfortable, I can instead think of my cases during the ride.8217;8217;

Once-upon-a-time bus commuters are not the only happy ones. 8216;8216;Earlier I would drive from Shahdara to my shop at Azad Market since I couldn8217;t even think of taking a bus. I always got stuck in traffic jams. Now I don8217;t take my car. The metro is so much quicker,8217;8217; says Sanjeev Arora, who runs a garment business. And it8217;s not always for work that Arora takes the train. 8216;8216;Every time we get guests from other cities, they always request a metro ride.8217;8217;

UNSEEN below the rushing crowds lies a civilisation of men and machines. The long dark tunnels and men in yellow helmets are carving out a passage for the glitzy silver metro whose list of suitors is only growing longer. Gurgaon wants one, so does Ghaziabad. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation DMRC has submitted project reports to authorities in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The ones for Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad are being prepared. A MoU with Colombo Sri Lanka is on its way and Indonesia and Bangladesh are showing interest.

It8217;s a story written in dust. All around Delhi about 20,000 workers work on ground and underground on the metro project. But Chawri Bazaar remains one of the biggest challenges for DMRC. It falls in the 11 km underground section of the metro project 8212; Line 2 8212; that covers 10 stations from Delhi University to the Central Secretariat.

8216;8216;Before we began work even I used to wonder how it could be done,8217;8217; says Kamal Nayan, chief resident engineer. On deputation to DMRC from Eastern Railways, Nayan once wanted to work on the Kolkata metro. 8216;8216;But when I was posted to Kolkata, the work was almost done.8217;8217; With the Delhi project, he finally got his chance.

And the metro8217;s fame has apparently reached even his native village in Bihar8217;s Jamalpur district. 8216;8216;They even joke about it and say 8216;why don8217;t you make one in Patna as well?8217;8217;8217; says Nayan.

But working in Chawri Bazaar is hardly a breeze. There are nearly 800 residential and commercial buildings above this station, most of them a 100 years old, some even 200. And that8217;s not all. In a perverse balance, weak buildings above the surface are countered by stubborn rocks below the earth, making blasting necessary. The workers also had to go 28 metres under the ground to carve out this station as opposed to the usual 17-18 metres.

Under the bustling bazaar an army of modern-day gnomes is studiously at work. About 125 workers and two wheel-loaders 8212; they pick up and transport the mud that8217;s excavated 8212; work round the clock. There are three shifts of eight hours each but many workers opt for overtime.

And the proof of the work lies in the dirt it8217;s throwing up. About 100 trucks make their way out of the darkness every night, taking with them 500 cubic metres of mud from the entrails of Chawri Bazaar. As the hungry loaders begin work again, workers move deftly out of the range of its ever-moving jaws.

Not many of them are overly worried about their safety. 8216;8216;We wear helmets and boots all the time,8217;8217; says Bhaskar Sharma from Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh, whose earlier stints as a driller with power plants appear to have steeled him.

8216;8216;The tunnelling is as safe as crossing a road in Delhi,8217;8217; says Iain D. Carter, chief safety and environmental manager. 8216;8216;When we started out, there was tremendous resistance to even wearing helmets. But we insisted and now in a way it has increased the pressure on other construction companies to do the same,8217;8217; says Carter, a British consultant at DMRC.

Safety concerns, especially in a densely populated area such as Chawri Bazaar, have also prompted the Corporation to use the New Austrian Tunnelling Method NATM. This is a more flexible system, economically and logistically more feasible for such a small area. Other metro rail zones have used simpler tunnel boring machines. 8216;8216;This is the first time this method has been used in urban India,8217;8217; says Nayan. One of the entrances to the station is at Hauz Quazi, the other at Amar cinema, which DMRC acquired.

To further ensure safety, small rectangular canopies have been put on some houses to monitor any movement in the surrounding structures. Over 80 households are being watched. In case there is any movement in any of the houses, it will be immediately reported and construction stopped. But that8217;s yet to happen.

KEEPING public inconvenience to the minimum has been a priority, actually a necessity in a city that never sleeps, never tires, never gives the harried metro worker a moment. The Kolkata metro8217;s construction was a cautionary tale. 8216;8216;Kolkata was a bad experience. Our major achievement has been that we have done construction without causing serious inconvenience to the public,8217;8217; says E. Sreedharan, managing director, DMRC.

Apart from Kolkata, there was not much expertise in the country for such an urban train network. The Delhi metro had to set its own benchmarks.

8220;TUNNELLING, hosting girders are all very difficult jobs but there have been no major disasters yet,8217;8217; says Sreedharan, adding that when the metro was being built in Malaysia, girders collapsed three times. 8216;8216;It8217;s an achievement the country can be proud of. It8217;s become a showcase that8217;s creating a lot of interest.8217;8217;

Minimal trouble for the man on the street 8212; literally 8212; was not the project8217;s only problem area. Delhi probably has more VIPs per square inch than any other city in the world. Connaught Place has about the highest concentration of daytime population 8212; of VIPs and IPs or even plain VOPs, very ordinary persons 8212; in the city.

Ensuring power, water and telephone lines are not disrupted in this bastion of fragile egos and infinite impatience is daunting.

Ask S.H. Shetty, station manager, construction, at Patel Chowk in central Delhi. 8216;8216;Transferring utility lines was a major task,8217;8217; says Shetty pointing to the water pipes, sewer and telephone lines that hang exposed in the tunnel, with rings for support.

Diverting traffic, managing 500 workers every day is difficult but it is being underground that is the main challenge, says Shetty, earlier with Konkan Railway 8212; Sreedharan8217;s other successful ride. 8216;8216;Above the ground you can see and take decisions but underground you have to assume and decide.8217;8217;

For once, Delhi must be celebrating those assumptions and decisions of the netherworld.