On Sunday, the Delhi Airport Metro Express shut down for at least a couple of months. The exact duration of the line’s closure is uncertain, though it is claimed that services will be resumed by the end of August. The Airport Express was planned as a marquee project; it was to be India’s fastest metro line, the first to be built under a public-private partnership (PPP). Indeed, it was seen not just as a test case for similar experiments in other cities, but also as a highly visible landmark of large-scale PPP in the infrastructure sector. The new Five-Year Plan is believed to rely heavily on such partnerships to expand India’s inadequate infrastructure. This shutdown, therefore, will inevitably raise several questions about that model. It is, thus, doubly important that the many issues revealed by the Airport Express be satisfactorily addressed.
The reported reasons for the Airport Express’ closure are related to its safety. Reliance Infrastructure, which is the private sector operator, says the civil structure – built by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, or DMRC – was defective. Around 250 “bearings”, the interfaces between the mammoth pillars on which the 22-kilometre line runs and the girders supporting the rails, were damaged, and cracks had begun to appear elsewhere — although it has been barely 16 months since the Airport Express began operation. Many issues, thus, arise. First, who bears responsibility for this damage, if any? If, in the future, concession holders claim similar problems, can they shut operation pre-emptively? The Airport Express may not be making money, and so it is easier for the concession holder to shut operation. Suppose, instead, the concession holder was to lose money through halting operations — would it be as eager? Second, what mechanism was in place to fix responsibilities for both the line’s structural flaws and maintenance or operational shortcomings? Then there is the question of who will bear the costs of repair. Should it be the concession holder, the public authority – the Delhi Metro – or the Malaysia-based company that built the line? The lack of clear liability or authority reveals the gaps in government thinking about this line, and about PPPs in general. Indeed, that very company is likely to be hired to make repairs — so it may even make money on its earlier errors, if any. On the other hand, if the operator conducts repairs instead, will it become liable for flaws discovered later? The Delhi Metro has had other construction-related issues, which were fortunately corrected in time. Why was this not — and does it have anything to do with this line’s PPP status?
The known facts are bad enough. The line has shut down after just more than a year; its start was delayed by six months; it ran slower than it was expected to. Meanwhile, it did not connect to Delhi Airport’s Terminal 1, and the tickets were priced much higher than those on the other lines. Question have also arisen as to why the Airport Express line should not have seamless connectivity with the Delhi Metro network and why it should be allowed to operate on a stand-alone basis, causing avoidable problems for commuters. The larger message is that the government’s approach to the Airport Express project, in particular, and to such PPP projects, in general, needs to be addressed in the light of the issues raised in this instance. India cannot expect to rely on PPPs for infrastructure unless mechanisms are found to ensure that such problems are not repeated elsewhere.
