Reliance Infra, the
concessionaire for the country’s first high-speed public-private partnership
(PPP) metro railway system, has been quick to blame the Delhi Metro Rail
Corporation (DMRC) for the civil faults that have led to the suspension of the
line. The DMRC, for its part, has accused the company of poor maintenance that
led to the deterioration of the faults.
In the squabble over
who is to blame for the faults, the question that remained unanswered is
whether both DMRC and Reliance Infra knew about the faults before the line was
commissioned and allowed the service to continue despite the risks.
In a letter to Union
Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, Reliance Infra has alleged that the DMRC
has accepted that the civil works executed by them were defective.
“The DMRC had given us
in writing that the metro corridor [with severe civil structure defects] was
safe to continue to run trains, and it is actually the DMRC who tried to force
us to take undue risks to life and property,” the letter said.
During a media
interaction on Monday, the concessionaire brushed aside accusations that its
decision to suspend the line was a fallout of poor financial returns from the
Airport Metro line.
Reliance Infra Chief
Executive Officer Sumit Banerjee said PPPs are not known to make profits and
that the Airport Express Metro was no exception. He also professed the
company’s wish to continue running the metro line.
“The issue of finances
does not arise here; PPPs do not make profits from day one. These are not
low-hanging fruits. The assumption is untrue,” Mr. Banerjee said.
He insisted that the
decision was based purely on safety concerns. The defects, he said, have been
there since the day it was constructed and were identified after an inspection
by the company. He also rebutted the DMRC’s allegations that the faults were made
worse by poor maintenance. Referring to the faults, Mr. Banerjee said the
construction did not follow the drawings that were prepared. When asked if the
pressure to commission the line contributed to the faults going unnoticed, he
refused to comment.
DMRC chief Mangu Singh
also gave evasive answers on the DMRC’s culpability. He said the design of the
bearings was not followed during construction and that defects existed from day
one. On whether he takes moral responsibility for the faults, he said: “Let us
wait for the report.”
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