E Sreedharan retires today as Delhi Metro Rail Corporation chief tomorrow and hand over the reins to colleague Mangu Singh after a highly successful 16-year tenure during which he transformed the capital's transport sector through the Metro.

79-year-old Sreedharan, who joined the DMRC in 1995, will formally hand over charge to Singh, a veteran civil engineer, this evening at a brief ceremony at the 'Metro Bhawan' here.

The iconic 'Metro Man', who changed the way Delhi travels by constructing the modern transport system in the capital in a short span of time, will retire after having worked in government service for over 58 years of which 16 years he spent in the Delhi Metro.

After his retirement, Sreedharan plans to spend his post-retirement days in his native village in the Thrissur district of Kerala.

In an interview with reporters recently, Sreedharan summed up his experiences in Delhi Metro as "very satisfying" and attributed the organisation's success to the "different work culture" and fast decision making process.

The 56-year-old Singh, a civil engineer from Roorkee University, will assume office tomorrow, a DMRC spokesman said.

Singh, who oversaw the high-speed Airport Express Line, is Sreedharan's choice to step into his shoes as the 'Metro Man' wanted an engineer of repute to take over the charge.

Singh is an Indian Railways Service of Engineers (IRSE) officer of the 1981 batch and has worked with Sreedharan in the Kolkata Metro project. He has been associated with the Delhi Metro since its inception.

During his 16-year tenure, Sreedharan not only gave a modern transport system to the capital but also brought in a system at the organisation which is known for completing its project well before schedule.

Under his leadership, the Delhi Metro grew leaps and bounds since it began operations in 2002 with its network now spreading across the National Capital Region.

After its launch in 2002, Delhi Metro slowly added several corridors to its network over the years thus bringing satellite cities of Noida, Gurgaon and Ghaziabad closer to the national capital.

The first ever Metro service was started on December 24, 2002 between Shahdara and Tis Hazari and the number of commuters has increased leaps and bounds over the nine years to reach 20 lakh passengers a day.

Singh is also in-charge of the Delhi Metro's Phase-III that envisages bringing another 103 km of the capital under the Metro network.

The engineer is also in-charge for consultancy works undertaken by Delhi Metro for planning Metro systems in cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Kochi.