Hydropower Metro transit systems are one of the key interventions in Indian cities aimed at improving the quality and accessibility of public transport. By the year 2022, 18 cities in India had operational metro corridors, with the Delhi–NCR region having the longest and 5 most extensive network, with an operational length of 392.44 km comprising 288 stations and an average daily passenger load of more than 6 million riders as of March 2024. Apart from the Delhi–NCR region, Chennai Metro ranked third in total network length, amounting to 54 km with an average daily passenger load of more than 297,000 riders. Since 2014, the total funds released by the government of India towards the capital cost of these two projects amounted to more than INR 35,000 crores (approx. US$4.16 billion), which is an enormous investment.

While both the Delhi–NCR region and Chennai are highly vulnerable to urban flooding, Delhi is also vulnerable to earthquakes, and Chennai to tropical cyclones. To safeguard capital investments against the above-mentioned hazards, both metro systems have mainstreamed infrastructure resilience through various interventions. While Delhi Metro thoroughly embedded infrastructure resilience in design, planning, operations and maintenance stages, Chennai Metro conducted a detailed Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (CRVA), which continues to inform decision-making towards a disaster-resilient Chennai metro system.  Click to Read