NEW DELHI -- The streets of India's sprawling capital are not for the faint of heart.
Platoons of motorcycles, ramshackle buses, fume-spewing trucks and struggling bicycle-rickshaw riders jostle for space with wandering sacred cows, motorized rickshaw taxis, legions of cars, magazine-waving vendors, horse-drawn carts and the occasional plodding elephant. Motor-scooter drivers, fed up with traffic jams, roar down the sidewalks, threatening to flatten pedestrians. Everybody honks, all the time.
Below ground, the Delhi Metro subway system is a different world.
Broad stairways and well-maintained elevators descend to spacious air-conditioned stations. High-tech tokens and smart cards open state-of-the-art passenger gates that lead to sleek, quiet, stainless steel trains with comfortable seating, air conditioning and spotless floors. Electronic displays show the waiting time to the next arrival - just minutes away - and the trains usually run on schedule.
This remarkably different Delhi is the vision of an unlikely hero - Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, a modest, straight-talking 74-year-old government civil engineer who is almost single-handedly revolutionizing the way things are done in India.
His success with the Delhi subway system - on the heels of a disastrous similar project in Calcutta - has spurred India's once-wary government to push ahead with subways in nearly every major city. Most Indian construction workers now wear hardhats and safety equipment, after he insisted on it for his workers.
India's people, used to third-rate facilities, are beginning to demand better after seeing from his efforts that it is possible. And politicians who used to sabotage public works projects with demands that contracts go to political cronies "have started to acknowledge that good results are possible and to see that they get the credit" for projects that work, Sreedharan said.
Corruption and political interference "are still big problems," he said. "But things are changing."
Sreedharan, a yoga devotee whose great passion is reading the Bhagavad Gita and other ancient Hindu scriptures in their original Sanskrit, could hardly be more different from most of India's high-flying construction moguls.
His salary is a 20th of what he could earn in the private market, analysts say. His corporate structure is minimalist, with engineers writing their own letters rather than relying on secretaries. But his aim is what most sets him apart - making life more dignified for millions of average Indians rather than making money from them.
