India’s Railway Man: A Biography of E. Sreedharan

by Rajendra B. Aklekar

Then, a bombshell was dropped by the Railway Board Chairman V.K. Agarwal. He said, ‘If you are going to have standard gauge then I must inform the honourable ministers that the Indian Railways would not be able to certify it because we have no experience with standard gauge.’ When Agarwal said this, Urban Development Minister Jagmohan was the first to say if that was the case there was no option and we must go for broad gauge. ‘If we cannot get safety certification from the railways for this, we are left with no choice, because according to the legal provisions in place, Indian Railways is supposed to give safety certification to the Metro Railway,’ he said. Then everybody decided to go for broad gauge. That is how the broad gauge issue was decided. This was against the earlier decision. It was a key decision