Hyderabad: Former Union minister S. Jaipal Reddy helped standardise the gauge used by metro rail throughout the country and played a pivotal role in bringing the it to Hyderabad.
Recalling the contribution of Mr Reddy during his tenure as Union urban development minister, Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited MD N.V.S. Reddy he gave a new dimension to metro rail in India.
Mr N.V.S. Reddy said that the railways was insisting that metro rail systems adopt the broad gauge (five feet six inches). Delhi Metro Rail Phase-I was built to broad gauge specifications. But ‘Metro Man’ E. Sridharan faced a lot of problems because Metro Rail systems the world used the standard gauge which was four feet six inches. Broad gauge metro rail were simply not available.
Delhi Metro had to get import and then alter coaches to broad gauge dimensions for the first phase. “With foreign field visits, discussions and interaction with international experts, DMRC, the governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka and undivided AP strongly pleaded for permission to adopt standard gauge and freedom for state governments to execute modern metros without interference from railways,” Mr N.V.S. Reddy said.
The HMRL MD said that the Centre appointed a group of ministers to decide on the policy.
Jaipal Reddy was in the group along with Mr P. Chidambaram, Mr Lalu Prasad and Mr Hansraj Bharadwaj. “Mine was the last presentation on behalf of AP. “Mr S.P. Singh and I met Jaipal Reddy informally and sought his guidance. He advised us to make the GoM understand the issues and implications in simple terms,” Mr N.V.S. Reddy recalled.
