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Sreedharan revealed his magic mantras at their behest: be honest in your private and public life in such a way that you don’t need to try hard to convince anybody; stand firm and do not cede an inch while discharging your duties with conviction; polish your professional skills and do not let it go out of date; keep your integrity so you hold in esteem even the most downtrodden in the society in your plans; be moral; follow habits that rejuvenate both your body and mind.
honesty is not a state where corruption is absent, but actively taking a stand to benefit the institution and society for the long term.
He channels the money from these awards into charity works, and also uses it to finance the education of students of poor means.
Karyam karomi, Na kinchit aham karomi (I perform the deed. But I am not the one who does it.)
Gyanam, Param Balam Nahi Jnanena sadrusham pavitram iha vidyate
‘The opportunity for an engineer to learn never ends until the very end of his life. Every experience will give you more strength. The reward for it will be better and more opportunities to serve your country.
If the first girder took them a week, the second took four days, and the third, three days. With the available resources and the techniques perfected over a couple of weeks, it became a smooth task to rapidly put all the girders in place. Towards the end, the workers had begun to haul two to three girders a day on to the bridge.
Sreedharan fondly recalled that the priceless treasure of designs he brought from Japan are still stored carefully at the metro office in Kolkata.
already called the general manager’s office in Madras to let them know that he would need a long time off.
Time and Tide: My Railway Days.
‘reverse clocks’
The first was installation of the reverse clocks.
The intent was to empower employees to take decisions and avoid the culture of dependency on superiors in trivial matters.
The promise to contractors that no decision would take more than forty-eight hours ever was one that was set in stone.
Sreedharan was particular about paying the contractors on time.
but it all came down to basic planning and dedicated hard work that ensured enough stocks of fuel to support the project.
He kept reminding them that a technician’s concerns should not just be about the pay cheque or the benefits, or about the attainment of glory or climbing up the ladder of designations. The only way to gain respect and recognition from peers and supervisors was to acquire the deepest knowledge and skills of one’s job, and improve and adapt them to the changing times. Promotions and positions would naturally find them.
Sreedharan would gift each officer at the executive level a copy of the Bhagavad Gita with Swamy Vidya Prakashananda’s interpretation at the time of their recruitment.
Available statistics show approximately 7000 stations and 8000 kilometres of global metro tracks in operation currently.
IIM Ahmedabad did find a few things—the first of them had been the organizational value and work culture in which we’d given special emphasis on timekeeping.
Sreedharan pointed out in an interview that the core values envisioned by Jamsetji Tata, when he laid the foundation for the huge enterprise of the Tatas, had endured long after his time. At
Sreedharan had recognized the traps that lay behind the alluring offers.
The profit-driven corporations did not interest him; their culture was alien to him and he did not wish to find himself in the private corporate environment.
Those who persisted in wooing him hoped he would change his views sooner or later. They must have been able to break down such resistance in other bureaucrats earlier. But soon they learnt that Sreedharan did not belong in that category.
Sreedharan’s style of functioning would guarantee attention to detail.
Wikipedia has a list of the top civil engineers in the world. Four from India have found place on the list, including
The nation felicitated him by conferring on him the Bharat Ratna in 1954, and made his birthday, 15 September, the national day of engineering.
he had donated would go straight into the trust and would be put to good use.
He had never before made even a passing reference to the trust, even in the countless speeches and interviews he had given around the nation. He
His entire salary from DMRC during his last four years there had been donated to the trust.
The regular recipient of Sreedharan’s charity activities has been the tribal colony near his Karukaputhur home.
Wherever he is, Sreedharan’s routine, which he has been following for decades, does not change. Life in
Sreedharan wakes up at 4 a.m. every day. His morning rituals are followed by half an hour of pranayam.
For Sreedharan, reading them has never been a mere intellectual exercise, but a process
He was the one to computerize the ticket reservation system.
