AP Govt to sue DMRC MD on apology

Hyderabad, Nov 3 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Government will file a defamation suit against Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Managing Director E Sreedharan for refusing to tender unconditional apology for ''false and baseless allegations made regarding the Rs 12,132 crore Hyderabad Metro Rail project, Finance Minister K Rosaiah said today.

Talking to newspersons here, he said the state government took the decision to avoid giving a wrong impression to the public about the project as Dr Sreedharan had not responded to the Municiapl Administration and Urban Development Principal Secretary's letter on the issue.

Denying lack of enough transparency, the minister claimed that the global bid process was conducted in an absolutely transparent manner and all national and international bidders were satisfied with the process.

The DMRC nominated four of its senior officers, including two of its Directors on the Committee for evaluation of technical bids and they submitted an independent evaluation report, he claimed.

Two Directors of DMRC Satish Kumar and Mangu Singh were associated throughout the bid process as representatives of DMRC and prime consultants and actively participated in all pre-bid conferences.

On Dr Sridharan's reported contention that Metro rail lines were altered and extended to areas where successful BOT operator had extensive private land holdings and that DMRC objected to the extension, he said the third line of Hyderabad Metro Rail was extended by about 5km upto Nagole in November 2007 due to problems faced in original local depot in Osmania University lands.

The Detailed Project Report for this extension was prepared by DMRC itself and the DPR copies, as approved by DMRC for this extension were approved by the Centre and were circualted to all bidders in November 2007, much before financial bids were called in April 2008, he added.

DMRC never objected at any point of time to financial model of commercial exploitation of vertifica air space in vogue in east Asian cities like Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo adopted in the Hyderabad project and this was superior model compared to DMRC practice of giving prime land for real estate development for 50 to 90 years of lease, he claimed.

UNI SM AKM 1849