week after the showcase Airport
Express Line, India’s first metro rail network under public-private
partnership, came to a grinding halt, the blame game between Reliance
Infrastructure and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) continues.
The rift became public with the
accusatory letter to the Union urban development minister from DMRC Managing
Director Mangu Singh being leaked.
In it, he has reportedly accused the concessionaire,
R-Infra, of allowing the situation to “worsen to such an extent that services
were required to be suspended”.
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STOPPED IN ITS TRACKS
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The problem was with the
construction of civil structures for the line and DMRC concedes this was its
responsibility. However, it blames R-Infra for negligence in inspection.
“DMRC has never denied that
construction and civil works was its responsibility, but R-Infra was not
conducting regular inspections. They were doing it only when instructed by us
and that, too, after we had written seven letters,” a DMRC official told
Business Standard.
Defending itself, an R-Infra
executive said, “In the letter, Mangu Singh has himself clearly accepted the
flaws in the construction work. And, this was DMRC’s responsibility.”
The inspection work on bearings had
to be done once a year, detailed inspection once in five years and replacement
works once in 15 years, he noted, and they were complying with this schedule.
“DMRC is trying to deflect the focus
of the public as they themselves faulted in construction,” he added.
Singh’s letter also said Reliance
was trying to find an excuse to walk out for not being able to run the line in
a profitable manner, wanting DMRC to either take over or financial restructure
the project.
According to the contents of the
leaked letter: “As I have already brought to your notice, Reliance, even prior
to this issue of damage to the bearings, had represented to DMRC about the
financial viability of the project and had in fact written to DMRC in this
respect. They had expressed that either DMRC take over or restructure the
entire project so that the financial burden on them is reduced. Meanwhile, they
were able to find this issue of bearings and suspended the services.”
Responding, the R-Infra executive
said, “DMRC is trying to shift the focus from safety to finances. We now
suspect DMRC’s ability to ensure the supervision of the construction work and
we have now started detailed inspection.”
The executive added a joint
inspection team of Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd, under the leadership of
the Railway Board, had even found broken girders on the line, apart from
bearings.
According to Sudhir Krishna,
secretary to the ministry, “The joint committee under the railways has
submitted an interim report and the final report is expected early next week.
The report will just look into what needs to be rectified in the line and the
reason for the defects.” Fixing the responsibility is outside the purview of
this report and would be done in a different one, he said, adding that an
end-to-end check of the line was desirable.
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