By IANS,
New Delhi: Delhi Metro Tuesday cracked down on two design consultant companies, few engineers and a US expert for not doing their job properly leading to the collapse of an under construction elevated section that killed six people. But the deadline to complete all works before the Commonwealth Games next year will be met.
“Let me tell, there is no hurry at all. We will finish the works before deadline,” Delhi Metro chief E. Sreedharan told reporters.
“I had told earlier too, that the mishap in Zamrudpur will delay the work in that line by three months but it will have no impact on the overall completion of phase two (before the Commonwealth Games).
“Kolkata Metro took 22 years to complete, phase one of Delhi Metro took seven years and phase two will take less time,” he said adding that earlier Delhi Metro had some 350 engineers and now they have “750 project engineers to oversee work”. There are more contractors too.
He said the time given to every contractor to finish work is “comfortable”.
While assuring authorities and the public, about the timely completion of work, DMRC Tuesday blacklisted the design consultant, Arch Consultancy Services for five years and the structural consultant, Tandon Consultants, which did not give “correct advice” to DMRC for two years.
“The cracks were noticed on April 1 after which Tandon Consultants was deployed to oversee and advise rightly. It advised that the occurrence of cracks on Pier-67 could not be attributed to inadequacy of design and detailing. This misled us. The consultant was debarred for two years from working with DMRC or any of its contractors,” Sreedharan said.
DMRC deputy chief engineer (design) V.P. Srivastava and deputy Chief Engineer in-charge of site supervision Mukesh Thakur have been placed under suspension. Also, its chief engineer (Design) Rajan Kataria has been issued with a major penalty charge sheet.
Beside punishing its own officials, DMRC also took action against C. Mallonga, an expert from the US (working with General Consultants) who had direct responsibility for ensuring quality of works. “He was immediately demobilised.”
Talking about the main contractor Gammon India, Sreedharan said: “We will send them a show cause notice asking why they should not be blacklisted for two years. The notice will be vetted through legal officers. They will have 21 days to answer. Depending upon the answer, we will take action on them.”
He went a step further and said: “For now the right thing is to pack the Gammon away but if it is done then there will be delay of six to eight months which we can not afford as then we will get delayed with the Commonwealth Games deadline.
“Gammon India is very important for us. They are involved in five major projects in Phase II. If you take them away, the projects will get delayed by six to eight months. We need Gammon India. Unfortunately, we don’t have many big construction companies,” he told reporters here, adding that blacklisting Gammon “at this point of time means floating tenders once again”.
To ensure safety, DMRC will ask Gammon to better its quality and safety assurance. “We are going to ensure quality assurance and safety assurance one level more than what it is today.”
Sreedharan assured that Metro structures are completely safe and the checks being carried out now will remove even small deficiencies, if any.
“The DMRC has decided not to depend entirely on its design office when it comes to the designs. General consultants or an independent design office will check the designs first and then pass it on to the (DMRC) design office. So there will be a double check,” the Metro chief said.
“There will be two-tier checking mechanism for designs”.
The Metro man also said that all the cantilevers – 87 in the phase two lines and 38 in the airport line – will be independently assessed. Talking about the cracks in 18 piers, Sreedharan said DMRC is employing a London-based consultant to asses them. “The construction over these 18 piers are over. We will carry out a load test and give 25 percent more load than a real life situation.”
Earlier in the day, Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy informed the Lok Sabha that a probe panel, headed by IIT-Delhi professor A.K. Nagpal, found “serious deficiency in the design of the cantilever arm and the concrete (used in the construction) not having the adequate strength”.
However, Sreedharan said that based on tests carried out on cores taken from the pier and cantilever, “it has found that the concrete fails to meet the strength criterion by a wide margin”.