Enquiry committee report on Airport Metro given to DMRC: govt

The Urban Development ministry has forwarded the report of enquiry committee, constituted to probe the faulty Delhi Airport Metro Line and coaches, to DMRC so that its board can act against officials, contractors and consultants held responsible, Lok Sabha was informed today.
The two-member enquiry committee that had looked into the closure of the Airport Metro Line had found deficiencies on part of various agencies, Minister of State for Urban Development Deepa Dasmunshi said in a written reply.
These agencies include the concessionaire DAMEPL, the construction contractor (m/s IJM-IJMI JV), Airport line consultant (PCI-PBI-JARTS-TONICHI- RITES), the detailed design consultants m/s Systra and also the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), she said.

Dasmunshi said that the Enquiry Committee has identified Kumar Keshav, the then Director (projects), DMRC for system failure and five other officers involved in the contract awarded to M/s IJM IJMI JV and recommended to take appropriate action against them.
The minister also said that after the report was submitted, one member of the Committee submitted a supplementary note for fixing up responsibility also on Mangu Singh, the then director (works) and R N Joshi, the then director (finance).
However, the other member was of the view that there appears no reason for the top management to interfere in day-to-day working and the responsibility attributed to the top management of the DMRC in this regard is not justified, Dasmunshi said.

In her reply the minister said DMRC had spent over Rs 14.03 crore on repairing the bearings on the Airport Metro line and intended to recover this cost from the construction contractor IJM-IJM JV and partially from concessionaire Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL).

Dasmunshi said that the report of the enquiry committee was referred to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and as per the its advice, the report has been forwarded to DMRC for examination by their board for taking action against various officials, consultants and contractors as per the findings of the report.
In response to another question in Lok Sabha related to the Airport Metro line, Dasmunshi said that Reliance Infra had invoked the termination clause and claimed termination payments from DMRC.

She said that the DMRC had also invoked the arbitration mechanism available within the concession agreement to resolve disputes between both the parties.