The perennial danger of success is the omnipresent possibility of success misguiding the successful. E. Sreedharan, Delhi’s metro man of the moment for some years now, seems to have, sadly, been blinkered by his own achievement. Sreedharan has received, and justifiably, every accolade from every conceivable quarter for what he has done with the Delhi Metro. So much so that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is the reference point for lightrail projects executed in the past (such as Kolkata’s), as well as for all Indian present and future lightrail projects. In fact, it was the DMRC success that helped nail, by comparison, the bad planning and poor execution of even the Delhi BRTS. But when Sreedharan sends a letter to the Planning Commission arguing ostensibly that the build-operate-transfer model for the Hyderabad Metro is not going to work, one would expect an objection empirically grounded. Till one recollects that the BOT model for Hyderabad was studied and approved by his own DMRC, which had prepared the detailed project report. One also learns that Sreedharan’s newfound objection is part warning — speculatively based on what is obviously just his suspicion that the BOT model for Hyderabad will lead to a political scandal.
Thus the validity of Sreedharan’s claim that the public-private partnership model will not do for Hyderabad is in doubt. Besides, the Planning Commission has iterated what we have always known — that the government lacks the resources to finance heavily capital-intensive projects such as the metro. The Delhi Metro itself benefited from subsidies, loans and exemptions, as well as initial investment by the state. Facts that only drive home the burden on the exchequer.
Without paying attention to the peevishness of the spat between Sreedharan and the Commission, the DMRC managing director may yet be requested that he stick to sound technical advice to the government, where his expertise lies; and leave politicians, bureaucrats, taxpayers and the media to handle prospective scams and political scandals.
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