Senior Congress leader V.M. Sudheeran has urged the government to take stern action against the officials trying to torpedo the Kochi Metro project by attempting to keep E. Sreedharan and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) out.
Mr. Sudheeran told The Hindu that certain civil servants in Kerala had been scheming right from the beginning to sabotage the project. The stand taken by Sudhir Krishna, the Union Urban Development Secretary, was a continuation of that move. Mr. Sudheeran felt that Mr. Krishna’s statement on Wednesday (that the Union Urban Development Ministry was not aware of the DMRC’s order entrusting Mr. Sreedharan the responsibilities of the construction of Kochi Metro) was a challenge against the people of Kerala.
Mr. Sudheeran recalled that last month there had been an understanding among Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on DMRC’s role in the Metro Kochi construction. The Kerala Government had made it very clear that it wanted DMRC and Mr. Sreedharan to carry out the project. The bureaucrats’ lobby was now upending this and Mr. Krishna’s statement was a clear indication of the sabotage move.
Referring to Mr. Chandy’s statement recently that some confusion had crept into the Kochi Metro project, Mr. Sudheeran remarked that the confusion had been there right from the beginning. Had the government taken steps to remove the confusion earlier, the present imbroglio would not have come about. He noted that a senior Kerala bureaucrat who had been asked to give an explanation for the ‘confusion’ a month ago had not done so. Mr. Sudheeran wanted the government to take immediate action against those Kerala bureaucrats who had been trying to sabotage the project.
