The Delhi Metro finally agreed to own up to its mistake of letting Reliance Infra resume running the prestigious Airport Express Metro after many a missed deadlines and stoppage of service over safety issues, and Monday took over the operations of line even as Reliance Infra, which ran the line, blamed DMRC's "persistent failure to cure defects” in the civil structure for termination of the concession agreement and claimed termination payment from it. The takeover of the 22.7 km-line was completed three days after Reliance Infrastructure announced its pull out from the service.
The Delhi Metro Board had met to discuss the letter of Reliance dated June 27 intimating that they would stop operating the Airport Line from the night of June 30, and concluded that the notice was in violation of the concession agreement and the ongoing arbitration proceedings.
However, the Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Ltd (DAMEPL), a special purpose vehicle of Reliance Infrastructure, has said that they terminated the concession agreement with DMRC for the airport metro line nearly nine months back, vide its notice dated 8th October, 2012.
"The termination clause had to be invoked by DAMEPL, as DMRC had persistently failed to cure the substantial defects in the civil structure designed and built by DMRC, within the period prescribed under the concession agreement, and on account of material breach and event of default by DMRC arising under the agreement as a result thereof," a RInfra spokesperson said.
According to the spokesperson, DMRC failed to make alternate arrangements for taking over the operations of the metro line, even after the termination of the concession agreement last October, adding DAMEPL was compelled to serve a final notice on DMRC to take over the operations with effect from July one, as it was not possible for them to continue the same indefinitely. DMRC is now liable to pay DAMEPL a termination payment equal to 130 percent of the adjusted equity and 100 per cent of the debt due for the project, as the termination has arisen owing to DMRC's "Event of default", the RInfra spokesperson claimed.
"RInfra is confident of recovering its entire investment in DAMEPL," the spokesperson said. DMRC today took over operations of the 22.7 km-long Airport Express link with an operations and maintenance team of 100 officials to handle the line. The total ridership of the line during the peak of its operations was recorded at 21,000 per day.
The metro line was shut down last July after problems arose due to defects in the civil structure, which were later rectified and it resumed operations in January this year. Since then its ridership has been recorded about 11,000 per day on an average.
Reacting to Reliance Infra's criticism of DMRC's "persistent" failure to cure defects in the civil structure of the Airport Express link, DMRC said it did not wish to get into a blame game as the matter was subjudice. A spokesperson of DMRC said they would "not like to comment on the other issues raised on the subject at this stage as the matter is subjudice and arbitrations proceedings are going on".
Meanwhile, the 22.7 km express line from New Delhi station to Dwarka Sec 21 ran as usual and at regular intervals under the operational team of DMRC.
Even though the stations on the express line wore a deserted look, DMRC expects the ridership to increase in the next few month.
"The fares of the airport line will remain the same until further notice, and there are no plans yet to hike the fare," Director, Operations DMRC Sharat Sharma told reporters here. "We do not want to react to any allegations put by Reliance. We do not want to get into the blame game," Sharma said. Asked about challenges ahead for the Delhi Metro in running the airport line, Sharma said "We need to see the limitations and liabilities of DAMEPL. Our aim is to ensure the mainentance and operation of the train and we will see what lies in the days ahead".
RInfra-owned DAMEPL was previously incurring Rs 7 crore monthly expenditure and Rs 3 crore earning in operations of the Airport Express line. Sharma said that DMRC has retained the existing staff members appointed by RInfra and will pay them regular salaries. He also ensured that this additional charge taken up by DMRC to operate the airport line will not hamper other projects in phase III.
