E Sreedharan once said that the difference between a project that finishes on time and one that doesn't is decided in the first week, not the last. He was describing the Delhi Metro, but the principle applied equally to the Pamban Bridge he rebuilt in 46 days after a cyclone, and to the Konkan Railway carved through the Western Ghats when most engineers said the terrain made the schedule impossible. What he built was not just infrastructure. It was a working argument against the institutional habit of managed delay.
