NEW DELHI: A film titled Surmounting Challenges produced by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has won the Best Promotional Film Award (Non-Feature Film) at the 68th National Film Awards 2020, which were announced on Friday.
The 28-minute-long film deals with the various construction-related challenges faced by DMRC during its third phase of expansion. In Phase 3, DMRC constructed about 190 kilometres of new lines and had to encounter innumerable challenges such as construction in the congested old Delhi localities, passing through an extremely busy road intersection at Ashram and constructing Delhi Metro’s deepest station at Hauz Khas.
With the help of new-age graphics and interviews of the engineers who executed the difficult project, the film brings to light the massive effort put in by DMRC to expand the Metro footprint in the National Capital Region (NCR). The making of the film in itself was a meticulous task as thorough research on the challenges faced had to be done by a dedicated team of officials followed by recording hours of interviews of the engineers.
The extensive shooting of the various locations along with retrieval of relevant archival footage had to be done to make the film a reality. Anticipating the making of the film, the entire construction process was documented in the form of videos and photographs for about 5 to 6 years across all under-construction corridors since the commencement of the work. Along with editing and other post-production requirements, the making of the film took over a year’s time. It is also an important document for transit rail engineers and researchers as it sheds light on a variety of issues that the construction of such mammoth infrastructure encounters.
This is the second time that a film made by DMRC has received such recognition. A film on the engineering challenges faced by Delhi Metro during its Phase 2 also won the National Award in the ‘Best Promotional Film Non-Feature films’ category in 2012.