The Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) should convene an emergency meeting and request the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) in writing to take up the work before the latter’s next director board meeting.
Unless any concrete step like this was done, the claims by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy about the State government’s wish on having the DMRC and its principal advisor E. Sreedharan on board sounded hollow, said P. Rajeev, MP.
Choosing to address the media at the district committee office of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) here before the Chief Minister convened a routine press meet on Cabinet decisions, Mr. Rajeev said that the conspiracy to keep Mr. Sreedharan out of the project seemed to be very elaborate and executed meticulously.
Both the Union and State governments appeared to be in the know of the move. A reference copy of the controversial letter that Tom Jose, Principal Secretary (PWD) wrote to Sudhir Krishna, Union Urban Development Secretary, was sent to both the DMRC and the KMRL on October 3.
However, neither the Chief Minister nor the Chief Secretary acknowledged about such a letter, which was not discussed at all.
It indicates that the letter was written with the knowledge of the Chief Minister. So the present move to restrict the inquiry just to Mr. Jose was not fair, Mr. Rajeev said.
He said the State government was afraid of taking a political stand against entrusting the work with Mr. Sreedharan, so was manufacturing technical excuses.
The conflict about the stand taken by the DMRC’s director board was not there at the first board meeting of the KMRL, but still the issue of handing over the work was not discussed there.
It was taken up for discussion at the second meeting only after the DMRC’s decision on having further deliberations before accepting works from outside Delhi.
