Delhi Metro to finish phase II before Commonwealth Games: Sreedharan

New Delhi, July 28 (ANI): Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Chief E. Sreedharan on Tuesday announced that the Metro Rail project will finish its second phase before 2010 Commonwealth Games despite accidents.

On July 12, an overhead bridge under construction gave way and crushed six workers to death and the following day in another incident two giant cranes carrying a huge girder toppled at the same site, leaving five workers as injured.

"This accident will not have any effect on the overall completion of the project in different lines, there is not going to be any change at all. We will still be able to complete our phase II comfortably before the Commonwealth Games," Sreedharan told media in the capital.

After the discovery of about a dozen hairline fractures on cantilever piers at the Delhi Metro's ongoing works across the city, the Delhi metro chief said that henceforth there would be double checks before designs are taken from the drawing board to the site.

"We will get an independent agency to check the designs first. When a contractor's design consultant submits a design, it will be checked by either our own general consultants or we will get an outside consultancy company to check the design first and then pass on to DMRC (Delhi Metro Rail Corporation) design office so that there will be two level of checks before the designs are cleared for execution," said Sreedharan.

Sreedharan blamed "deficiency" in design and material for the July 12 mishap which claimed six lives and claimed that a design consultant firm which inspected the site "misled" them and the contractor about the condition of the pier which collapsed.

He informed that the DMRC was also serving a show-cause notice to contractor Gammon India, which was carrying out the work at Zamrudpur accident site, to explain why it should not be blacklisted for two years, besides suspending its two Deputy Chief Engineers.

It also blacklisted Arch Consultant, design consultant of Gammon India, for five years besides issuing a "major penalty chargesheet" to Chief Engineer (Design) Rajan Kataria.

Delhi Metro chief, making the findings of a probe into the Zamrudpur accident public, said Tandon Constructions were appointed by them to inspect the site after cracks were reported.

"The crack on the pier 67 was first noticed on April one and we approached them on April three. They gave us a report on April 15 saying that there was no inadequacy in the design. The consultant misled the DMRC and contractor," Sreedharan told a press conference.

The Board of Directors of DMRC which met in New Delhi on Monday to study the report of the three-member panel headed by IIT professor A K Nagpal decided to blacklist Tandon Construction for two years.

Sreedharan said, according to the report, the design of the cantilever pier which collapsed in Zamrudpur was not adequately taken care of.

"There was a deficiency of steel at critical areas besides a major deficiency in reinforcement detailing," he said. (ANI)