An underground metro was proposed for London in the 1830s, the license granted to construct one in 1854, a test construction and run started in 1855, and the first underground railway ran in London in 1863.

New York approved the construction of an underground subway in 1894 and its construction started in 1900. The first subway began operations in New York in 1904.

Paris proposed its underground railway in 1845, approved a team of engineers to work on one in 1871, construction began for one line in 1898, and it was opened for public use in 1900.

Kolkata metro started its operations in 1984 and the Delhi metro in 2002.

Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, financial services hub, and top migration destination for job seekers for the better part of 70 years, got a solitary 11.4-kilometre line in 2014. Mumbai is a city of public transport, where people happily walk, take trains and buses, and prefer not to buy vehicles of their own unless really required. Yet, it was running a few decades behind Indian peer cities and at least a century behind peer global cities, when it came to constructing a proven, comfortable mass rapid transport option.

The foundation stone for the solitary Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar line was laid by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in June 2006. However, the construction started only in 2008 and it took almost six years to get the line operational. This east-west line started slow, but achieved the 200 million passenger mark in 786 days of operation. The next 50 million came faster in 171 days on the 957th day of operation. Until 2018, the highest single-day ridership was 312,215, but a combination of bus strikes and increased demand saw a 520,000-plus turnout on 11 January 2019.

If the single metro line with limited interchanges with other transport options is so popular, what stopped its rapid expansion? Simple answer – government apathy at all levels from municipal to central. That changed when the Devendra Fadnavis-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government assumed office in October 2014, soon after the Narendra Modi-led BJP government took oath in May 2014.

Fadnavis won the state election for the BJP with an urban, pro-development appeal. This was very complementary to how Modi had run his election campaign. Fadnavis started to work on resurrecting the Mumbai metro plans at a rapid pace. The state government as well as the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) had commissioned several studies on this subject beginning 1997. There was no dearth of information. Someone had to translate the theory into action and Fadnavis took the mantle nicely.

In less than four years, the Mumbai metro plans look very different. They also look very exciting in terms of demonstrating that if there is government will, Indian engineering and planning skills can achieve fairly complex feats successfully. Today, the Mumbai metro has a 260-km visibility, with different lines at various stages of planning, tendering and construction.

Unlike between 2008 and 2013, when the construction of a single line held the city traffic to ransom, the construction process has been managed better this time. Of course, with a host of metro lines under various stages of construction, the city traffic does become unbearable at times, but in comparison to Line 1 construction, the local authorities have handled the situation well.

The following map shows the change that has come about in these four years