Will Metro go the Common Wealth Games Way?
Editorial by Vinita Deshmukh (Intelligent Pune August 13-19.
www.intelligentpune.org)
At the nucleus of the uproar over the Common Wealth Games (CWG) preparations is unaccountability, lack of transparency, high-handedness, brazen financial irregularities, cost overruns due to lack of planning and sub-standard infrastructural development works due to racing against time and damning Comptroller of Accounts General (CAG) Report that has been ignored. Does this ring a familiar bell? Yes it does - for another such magnum opus is theDelhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC’s) ambitious metro rail projects across the country.
If Suresh Kalmadi is the unquestionable and authoritarian one-man figure for the CWG, then E Sreedharan is his equally high-handed counterpart as the head of the DMRC who is lorded over by parliamentarians, in almost unison.
Any serious flaws in the construction of the Delhi Metro, in fact any negative news about it is slyly pushed under the carpet. Its attempt to replicate its model in plus million cities, without any homework on the impact on them due to their different nature in terms or geography, demography, the existing transport and so on, is full of holes, yet is trumpeted as infallible. Pune Metro is a shameful example of how, DMRC has made a haphazard DPR (Detailed Project Report) and the bureaucracy and politicians at the highest level in the city, state and atthe centre, have accepted it blindly, refusing to listen to the horrendous flaws pointed out by experts and citizens.
The CWG disaster-in-the-making sprouted because the British government sought explanation to allegations made that a substantial sum of 4.50 lakh pounds was transferred to a little known U K company, A M Films, from the Games Organising Committee (OC). This one-man show company is also receiving 25,000 pounds a month. Otherwise, all wrong-doings of disastrous scale, as have now been exposed would have been kept a guarded secret, never mind if later a stadium was to collapse and kill people.
Kalmadi is clearly not as lucky as E Sreedharan.
In the case of the Rs.450 billion Delhi Metro project, the CAG report has pointed to thequestionable standards of construction. Tragic accidents have taken place during Delhi Metroconstruction due to cutting costs and caring two hoots for safety regulations, but no fingers have been pointed at the culprits responsible for this unpardonable tragedies. Last July five workers and a site engineer were killed and a dozen injured during the work of the elevated Central Secretariat-Badlapur line near Lady Shriram College in South Delhi as the girder above crashed down bringing down with it the viaduct. Despite this tragedy, the CAG Report was not discussed in parliament. Reason? DMRC has been given such uncalled for monopoly that it does not come under any ministry, so no ministry was ready to take it up. It’s a way to hush up things and let the scoundrels scot-free to repeat even more monumental errors.
E Sreedharan is free to work the way he wants and not be accountable to expenditure of any amount of public money. Like the CWG which shockingly rents computers and other accessories at exorbitant amounts, DMRC too had flown the imported Delhi Metro coaches by air – one can only imagine how costly air-lifting of these coaches must have been which has been paid through our money, but Sreedharan is praised for completing the task in a record time.
What’s shocking is that DMRC has been allocated huge public funds, unprecedented in thehistory of our nation for infrastructural projects and yet it is not answerable to the government or to the public. Can you imagine the implication of such freedom which is being undertaken with gross irresponsibility? Lets take the case of the railway tunnel built on the Kalka-Shimla Railway line during the British Raj sometime in early 1900s. A British railway engineer Barog who was in charge of the tunnel made the mistake of digging the tunnel from both ends simultaneously but the twain did not meet at the ends due to wrong alignment. The British government penalised him for a handsome sum of Re.1 for wasting public money. Humiliated, Barog committed suicide by shooting himself. The name of this tunnel is Barog Tunnel and is made one kilometre away by another British engineer, H. S. Harington with the help of a local sadhu, Bhalku.
After six decades of attaining freedom, the government does not have the guts and the moral responsibility of punishing high placed politicians and bureaucrats even if they have been directly or indirectly involved in wastage of thousands of crores of public money. In the same vein, politicians and bureaucrats too have become so morally corrupt that they would probably poke at the Barog tunnel story, if told to them.
The CAG report on the DMRC point to shocking revelations but no action taken.Some of them are: no records of minutes and justification for decisios;no regulations for safety standards followed; no documentation/manuals for systems; no policy directive of management controls by the urban development ministry; high fares resulting in lesser riderships; noise levels above permissible standards; premature wear and cracking of wheels and metro track affecting safety and reducing life of this rolling stock to below 30 years; more than 50 per cent of bids exceeding project estimates and that too without finance concurrence; audits show major irregularities in evaluation and acceptance of contracts; audits point out major irregularities in payment to contactors giving non-contractual benefits to hem; abysmal testing standards; land acquisition in excess of requirements; property development contracts accepted in uncompetitive bidding at abnormally high prices.
Sounds so much like a CWG controversy-in-making? Well, Kalmadi and Sreedharan represent thetarnished face of our government which has stooped low in principles, ethics and governance. Can there be a change? Only peoples’ revolution can help - most of who are callously watching the murder of our Nation, within their cosy drawing rooms.
Vinita Deshmukh
Editor
Intelligent Pune
www.intelligentpune.ort
