Delhi Metro - Environment and Aesthetics

Environment and Aesthetics

The Delhi Metro has won awards for environmentally friendly practices from organisations including the United Nations, RINA, and the International Organization for Standardization, becoming the second metro in the world, after the New York City Subway, to be ISO 14001 certified for environmentally friendly construction. Most of the Metro stations on the Blue Line conduct rainwater harvesting as an environmental protection measure. It is also the first railway project in the world to earn carbon credits after being registered with the United Nations under the Clean Development Mechanism, and has so far earned 400,000 carbon credits by saving energy through the use of regenerative braking systems on its trains. In order to reduce its dependence on non-renewable sources of energy, DMRC is looking forward to harness solar energy and install solar panels at the Karkardooma and Noida Sector-21 metro stations.

The Metro has been promoted as an integral part of community infrastructure, and community artwork depicting the local way of life has been put on display at stations. Students of local art colleges have also designed decorative murals at Metro stations, while pillars of the viaduct on some elevated sections have been decorated with mosaic murals created by local schoolchildren. The Metro station at INA Colony has a gallery showcasing artwork and handicrafts from across India, while all stations on the Central Secretariat – Qutub Minar section of the Yellow Line have panels installed on the monumental architectural heritage of Delhi. The Nobel Memorial Wall at Rajiv Chowk has portraits of the seven Nobel Laureates from India: Rabindranath Tagore, CV Raman, Dr Hargobind Khorana, Mother Teresa, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Amartya Sen and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and provide details about their contribution to society and a panel each on Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Prizes.