The Delhi Metro (Hindi: दिल्ली मेट्रो Dillī Meṭro), is a rapid transit system in the Indian city of Delhi that was built and is operated by the Delhi

The Delhi Metro (Hindi: दिल्ली मेट्रो Dillī Meṭro), is a rapid transit system in the Indian city of Delhi that was built and is operated by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC).

The Delhi Metro was opened on December 24, 2002. It became the second underground rapid transit system in India, after Kolkata. The Delhi Metro has a combination of elevated, at-grade and underground lines.




The Delhi Metro has won numerous awards for its environmentally friendly practices from many renowned organisations including the United Nations, RINA, and ISO. Delhi Metro was the first metro in the world to be ISO 14001 certified for environmentally friendly construction.

The concept of a metro for Delhi was first formalized in the Delhi Master Plan of 1960 , and the legal framework for the metro was laid out in the Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act of 1978.

Actual work towards building the metro, however, only started in March 5, 1995, when the DMRC was established. After the previous problems experienced by the Calcutta Metro, which was badly delayed and 12 times over budget due to "political meddling, technical problems and bureaucratic delays" , the DMRC was given full powers to hire people, decide on tenders and control funds.

Physical construction work started on October 1, 1998. Aside from one major spat in 2000, where the Ministry of Railways forced the system to use broad gauge despite the DMRC's preference for standard gauge , construction proceeded smoothly. The first line opened on December 24, 2002 and the entire Phase I of the project was completed in December 2005, on budget and almost three years ahead of schedule, an achievement described as "nothing short of a miracle" by BusinessWeek.

Mr. E. Sreedharan, the Managing Director of the Metro during the Phase I construction, was declared "Indian of the Year for 2007" by CNN-IBN news channel.


Routes
Phase I of the network comprises 65.11 km of route length with 13.01 km underground corridor and 52.10 km surface/elevated corridor.

Phase II of the network comprises 128 km of route length and 79 stations, and is presently under construction, with the first section opened in June 2008 and a target completion date of 2010.

Phase III (112 km) and IV (108.5 km) are planned to be completed by 2015 and 2020 respectively, with the network spanning 413.8 km by then, making it larger than London's Underground (408 km) As the city expands beyond its city limits, there will be further extensions of the network in suburbs, because the northern outskirts of Delhi (Narela) and the suburbs beyond it (Kundli, Sonepat) and the south-eastern suburb of Greater Noida are currently left untouched in the Delhi Metro Masterplan 2021. Northern extensions would be provided by extending Yellow line (Line 2) northwards. Also plans have been mooted to construct a new line from Noida Sector-62 to Greater Noida which will intersect Indraprastha - Noida Sector-32 line (blue line) which is already under construction