A day after deciding to suspend operations of the Delhi Airport Metro Express from Sunday, the government on Saturday claimed the high-speed corridor would resume services in two months, after necessary repairs.
Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd, or DAMEPL, the Reliance Infrastructure arm that operates the Metro line, on Saturday came out with a public notice, specifying the reasons for shutting down the line. It has also organised help desks at each station between 5:30 am and 11:30 pm for one week from tomorrow to refund the unexpired value of monthly passes and stored value passes to interested customers.
The journey of Delhi Airport Metro Express, the first private Metro in the country — from its construction to operation — has had many controversies. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the operator, Reliance Infrastructure, had differences of opinion even before the line became operational.
In fact, the present managing director Mangu Singh and founding MD E Sreedharan, have been critical of the project.
In a report to Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Ltd, Shirish Patel and Associates, an independent consultant, recommended “considering the recent commissioning of the line, the distress observed at the bearings was totally unexpected. Prima facie, the problem appeared to be related to the quality of construction”.
The consultant had reviewed the conditions of the bearings on the expressline. It also commented on misalignment at some locations. There were some places where actual construction had not followed the schematic drawings, it said.
An RInfra executive on Saturday said on the condition of anonymity that DMRC had conceded at a meeting with the urban development secretary on July 2 that there was poor implementation of the civil structures work.
“Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (the Reliance Infrastructure arm that operates the Metro line) was never involved in design and construction of the airport expressway. DMRC Department of Pharmaceuticalsad engaged Systra for designing of the structure,” he said.
The official added 250 of the 2,100 bearings on the elevated line were found to be severely damaged. Bearings are concrete structures on top of pillars on which girders rest. Cracks have been found on the elevated structures.
Reliance Infra CEO (infrastructure) Sumit Banerjee on Saturday admitted the corridor was not making profits. “This decision is purely linked with safety,” he said.
Airport Express line had notched up over 6.8 million passengers in 70,000 trips at peak speed of 105 km per hour. It claimed a run time of 18 minutes from New Delhi Railway Station to Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport and had a daily ridership of about 15,000 passengers. However, two months back, the speed was brought down to 90 km/hr over safety concerns.
