Title - Delhi Metro, Reliance locked in blame game

In wake of criticism from Reliance Infrastructure and the railways that the Airport Line was not appropriate since its inception, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Tuesday said in a statement that they have never “compromised passengers safety”. “The safety of the passengers travelling by the Airport Express link, was never compromised by DMRC or the concessionaire running the line,” the statement said. “The moment faults were noticed in the clips on the railway tracks, necessary speed restrictions were imposed and required repair work was carried out during the non-operational hours at night time,” added the statement. DMRC denied allegations that it did not respond to the seven letters sent by Reliance Infrastructure. DMRC said it never forced or instructed Reliance to adopt any particular track system for the Airport Express corridor. “Initially, the concessionaire suggested the single fast clip (SFC) system to DMRC, which was not found suitable for a high speed corridor. Subsequently, DMRC suggested four-track systems to the concessionaire (Reliance), which are – RHEDA 2000, VIPA, VANGAURD and double fast clip,” said Jitendra Tyagi, director (works), DMRC Limited.  “Apart from RHEDA 2000, all the other systems were from Pandrol, which is a rival company of the German firm Vossloh,” added Tyagi. DMRC admitted that thorough investigation into the issue is “necessary, and all other ancillary factors related to Metro operations also need to be investigated.” “Timely inspections were not carried out despite repeated reminders from DMRC. If the defects were noticed earlier the Metro operations would not have been hampered,” said Tyagi.