In a letter to union urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri, a copy of which has been sent to home minister Rajnath Singh, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that he has received reports about an impending liability of around Rs 5,000 crores faced by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), due to the termination of the concession agreement of the Delhi Airport Express Metro Line (DAEML). Kejriwal, in the letter, said, “Given the alarming proportions of negligence and corruption, I would request you to entrust this case to the CBI, for expeditious investigations and prosecutions.”
Quoting the conclusion of a report by the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi, which was directed to enquire into the matter, he said, “The entire episode would lead to an onerous burden of about Rs 4,700 crores, which will have to be shared equally by the centre and the Delhi government. Yet, the government of the national capital territory of Delhi has no means of taking any preventive or corrective action, as the DMRC is neither answerable to it nor does it exercise any form of control or authority over the DMRC,” the chief minister said. A senior DMRC official, when contacted, refused to comment on the matter.
See also: Rinfra subsidiary DAMEPL not to enforce arbitral award in its favour: HC informed
The commission, in the report, which was cited by Kejriwal in his letter, claimed that the concession agreement was ‘modified and wilfully manipulated’ by DMRC, assisted by its in-house consultants, to give an ‘unfair and unwarranted advantage’ to the concessionaire, at the expense of the public exchequer. It also claimed that there were ‘serious multiple defects and lapses’ in the entire civil construction of DAEML, by the DMRC.
“It was these defects and lapses, which led to the termination of the concession agreement of the concessionaire,” the report stated. Kejriwal said an enquiry by a high-level committee of experts was also necessary, to establish the causes and consequences of the serious multiple defects in the construction of the DAEML, so that public safety was not compromised and trains could run at the designed speed of 120 kms per hour.
