The Urban Development Ministry has constituted a two-member committee to fix responsibility for the suspension of services on the Delhi airport metro line from July 8.
When asked who was to blame for installing faulty bearings, Urban Development secretary Sudhir Krishna said: “A committee comprising Deepti Vilasa, additional secretary, Urban Development Department, and A K Gupta, member (works), Indian Railways, will look into the matter. Subsequently, we will know who is responsible.”
Krishna said a joint inspection committee with technical experts from Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), Reliance Infrastructure and design consultant Systra would inspect the whole line.
The airport metro is a joint venture between DMRC and Reliance Infra.
“Till now, 540 of the total 1,040 bearings have been checked. Many of them have suffered varying degrees of damage. We expect inspection and work to be finished by August end, but we can get a realistic assessment of the situation by the end of July,” he said.
On relaunch of operations, he said: “We do not want to keep any time frame as we should be sure about the line’s safety before restarting service.”
Meanwhile, Reliance Infrastructure CEO Sumit Banerjee alleged that the problem was the result of non-adherence to the approved design. He also stressed that the company was committed to run the airport metro.