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This article discusses the managing director of India's Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Elattuvalapil Sreedharan. An engineer and career officer of state-owned Indian Railways, he spent much of the 1990s running what was then the world's biggest overground-railway building project. That it was built so quickly, works so well and bears comparison to the best in the world has made him a national hero. Sreedharan has a simple explanation for his success. Half the equity is held by the central government, and half by the Delhi authorities. Instead of doubling the amount of bureaucratic meddling, this almost eliminates it: there is no government ministry to which every file has to be passed. Decision-making is speeded up further by the board's delegation of authority to him. Opening the new line, India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, called Sreedharan "a role model for future generations".