Vikas Kumar, a 1988-batch officer of the Indian Railway Traffic Service, will assume charge as the new managing director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Friday, officials said.
The Delhi government on Wednesday appointed Kumar as the next DMRC chief.
He will hold the post for a term of five years, as per an official order issued by the transport department of the Delhi government on Wednesday.
Kumar will succeed Mangu Singh, who on Thursday bid an emotional farewell to the DMRC after an illustrious career of 25 years, including the last decade as its top boss.
He will be the DMRC's third managing director after E Sreedharan and Mangu Singh, officials said.
"Vikas Kumar will assume responsibility as the new Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) with effect from tomorrow, i.e., April 1, 2022 (Friday). Kumar is taking over charge from Dr Mangu Singh, who was the managing director of DMRC since January 1, 2012. Dr. Singh's illustrious tenure came to an end today," the DMRC said in a statement.
Kumar, who was holding the position of the director (Operations) in the DMRC, has over three decades of experience in rail-based urban transportation projects, it said.
Kumar has worked with the Indian Railways in various capacities before joining the DMRC in September 2004. He has been associated with the DMRC for more than 17 years in key management positions, the statement said.
In the DMRC, Kumar has headed the operations wing of the organisation since 2007 in various leadership capacities, such as general manager (Operations), executive director (Operations) and director (Operations). He has played a key role in ensuring smooth commencement of metro services in Delhi-NCR, it added.
"Kumar was instrumental in setting up of DMRC's wholly-owned subsidiary company 'Delhi Metro Last Mile Services Limited' for provision of last-mile services to and from metro stations. He has also provided consultancy services to the Dhaka Metro project as its Operations and Maintenance Rules expert. This apart, he has been involved in providing consultancy for various metro projects in India, such as in Jaipur, Kochi, Nouda-Greater Noida, Mumbai, etc," the statement said.
He has travelled across the world to get exposure to the latest technologies and management strategies employed by rail-based urban transit systems, the officials said.
"Kumar has been DMRC's Senior Benchmarking Representative to deal with TSC (Transport Strategy Centre), Imperial College, London which is the coordinating agency for the CoMET group of Metros. DMRC is a member of CoMET which is a benchmarking group of large and medium-sized metros from across the world," it said.
Kumar has also been the recipient of various awards while serving in the Indian Railways and the DMRC such as the General Manager's Award, Operations Shield (in Indian Railways) and the Managing Director's Award (in DMRC), the DMRC said.
A graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Roorkee (now IIT-Roorkee), he has done his Masters in opto-electronics and optical communications from IIT-Delhi. Apart from being academically meritorious, Kumar was also involved in swimming and badminton as a student, the officials added.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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