Metro has changed the way Delhi travels and much of the credit is attributed to Sheila Dikshit.

The National Capital's lifeline, the Delhi Metro, started off with just an 8-km track back in 2002 when late Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit was in her first term of the government. In the 17 years since Metro has changed the way Delhi travels and much of the credit is attributed to Dikshit, who passed away at the age of 81 in the city on Saturday.

Not just the Metro, any outsider who visits Delhi the first time, cannot miss the sheer number of flyovers the city has built in the past two decades. Again, most of these were constructed in the close to 15-year-rule of Delhi's most loved chief minister, Sheila Dikshit.

After the inauguration in 2002, Delhi Metro has come a long way and is now one of the biggest rapid transit networks in the world. It connects the extreme ends of the National Capital Region from Gurgaon to Noida, Faridabad to Ghaziabad and runs over 300 kilometres.

With some 250 odd stations and eight lines, Delhi Metro is now the largest and busiest metro network in the country. It is also the second oldest after Kolkata Metro.

Crediting much of this growth to Sheila Dikshit, during a campaign rally ahead of the 2014 Delhi assembly election that saw the end of the Sheila Dikshit-era, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said the veteran Congress leader had changed the face of Delhi.

He said in her 15 years as the chief minister, Sheila Dikshit had ensured all-round infrastructural and social development of the capital city with over 130 flyovers, a swanky Metro and a growing number of buses in the public fleet.

With the CNG rules for all public transport and green push for Delhi, CM Sheila Dikshit earned some flak in her first term but only to come back with a bang as the city saw and breathed better air thanks to the transformation.

Although the Delhi Metro was planned by Dikshit's predecessor Madan Lal Khurana, it was during her term that the ambitious project saw the daylight.

In 2011, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) was lauded by the United Nations for being the first rail network that reduced greenhouse gas emissions.