Legend has it that when the first under-ground metro train began running between Bhowanipore and Esplanade in Calcutta in 1984, there were more gawking onlookers than riders for it. Perhaps because it had taken such a long time coming, for the foundation stone for the Calcutta Metro had been laid some 12 years earlier, in 1972, by then prime minister Indira Gandhi. The project had found the going painstakingly slow, and few would have envisioned the impact it would have on urban transport in India. But that modest beginning planted the seeds of a metro rail revolution that would transform India over the next four decades.
This story is from the December 30, 2024 edition of India Today.
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This story is from the December 30, 2024 edition of India Today.
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