Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot on Thursday said that the Delhi government and the Centre are 50:50 partners in Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the latter has no right to “dictate” on who the Delhi government should nominate to the DMRC board.
The Minister made the comments in a letter he wrote to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in reply to the latter’s letter to withdraw the Minister’s recent nomination of “four private individuals” to the DMRC board of directors.
Four candidates
On July 13, Mr. Gahlot had nominated Aam Aadmi Party leaders Atishi and Raghav Chadha, vice-chairperson of the Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission Jasmine Shah; and Naveen Gupta, son of AAP Rajya Sabha MP N.D. Gupta, as the Delhi government’s nominees to the board.
Mr. Gahlot said in the letter that the MoHUA’s earlier letter relies upon the guidelines issued by the Department of Public Enterprises dated March, 16, 1992.
“A perusal of these guidelines shows that they, in fact, say quite the opposite of what Central government wants us to do,” the letter read. “In fact, these guidelines strongly recommend that non-government officials should be nominated as Board Members,” he said in the letter.
“Department of Public Enterprise vide DPE OM. No. 2(19)/99-GM dated January 2, 2000, instructed all Government Departments to bring down the number of Government Directors on Board of Directors of PSUs to two. In the case of DMRC, out of a total strength of 17 Directors, presently there are 6 Directors who are Government officers [5 Central government nominees and the MD who is a Delhi Government Nominee]. This is much more than what has been prescribed by Central government guidelines. Therefore, nomination of 4 Non-Government officials by Delhi Government is in accordance with the Central government guidelines,” the Minister said in the letter.
