Explain mishap,Gammon told

Making the report of the three-member panel public on Tuesday,Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) managing director E Sreedharan called for punitive action against the line’s contractor,Gammon India Limited,the design consultants and senior DMRC officials engaged in the project.

“The board of directors has accepted the inquiry report in its entirety and action is being taken accordingly,” Sreedharan told the media. “DMRC is as much responsible for the mishap as is the contractor involved — we approved the design and supervised the project.”

He said,“This mishap happened as we were misled by the consultant engaged to check the initial cracks. The consultant had advised that the cracks on pier-67 (near LSR) could not be attributed to inadequacy of design and detailing.”

On that basis,Sreedharan said,“we decided to resume work at the site”.

The expert team found that the cantilever design “had not adequately taken care of various forces and hence there was deficiency in provision of steel at critical points and the reinforcement detailing suffered from major deficiencies”.

The committee noted that the concrete was “well compacted,and there was no visual evidence of irregularities”.

But in tests carried out on cores taken from the pier and cantilever it was found that the “concrete failed to meet the strength criterion by a wide margin”.

The expert team said the cement content was “only marginally lower than required in design mix and does not explain the lower strength of concrete”. The fault,it concluded,might be “lack of curing”,which resulted in concrete turning weak.

Legal action against Gammon will be taken after the firm replies to a show-cause notice issued to it. “The contractor is expected to reply to the showcause notice within 21 days,” Sreedharan said. “We will take the final call on the basis of their reply.”

But despite the decision to showcause Gammon,DMRC has decided not to “pack them off”. Sreedharan said,“We need them for restoration work at the accident site,which is yet to be completed,and also to finish the project. There are very few contractors who can step in.”

Gammon has contracts worth Rs 300 crore with DMRC,of which work of nearly Rs 230 crore has been completed. It is on five major contracts on the Noida and Central Secretariat-Badarpur line.

Three contracts on the Badarpur line are pending.

Action taken
* Arch Consultancy Services,design consultants to Gammon India,blacklisted for 5 years and taken off all DMRC works
* DMRC deputy chief engineer (design) V P Srivastava and deputy chief engineer in-charge of site supervision Mukesh Thakur suspended
* DMRC chief engineer (design) Rajan Kataria issued major penalty chargesheet
* C Mallonga,expatriate consultant of General Consultants,who had direct responsibility to ensure quality,demobilised
* Gammon to be issued showcause notice
* Tandon Consultants,engaged to check initial cracks on pier-67,to be debarred for two years from working with DMRC or any of its contractors

The story of pier-67
April 1: Initial cracks noticed
April 3: Mahesh Tandon of Tandon Consultants Pvt Ltd approached to examine crack
April 15: Tandon submits report
(Report says cracks not result of design,detailing inadequacy; DMRC nod to resume work)
July 12: Launching girder on Pier 67 and 68 collapses,killing 6

Postmortem
* Expert panel says cantilever design had not adequately taken care of various forces,so there was deficiency in provision of steel at critical points
* Tests on cores taken from pier and cantilever confirmed concrete failed to meet strength criterion by wide margin
* Lack of curing might be reason for low concrete strength,says report

No delay
Though Central Secretariat-Badarpur corridor might be delayed by three months,the 3 other corridors on which 18 cracks have been detected will not be affected,says Sreedharan. He says all projects under Phase II will be completed within deadline — before Commonwealth Games next October

Penalty undecided
DMRC is yet to decide on monetary penalty to be slapped on contractors Gammon India. It might not be huge,as Sreedharan says Gammon already has to incur huge expenses on compensation for workers,restoration and reconstruction of site. Gammon’s reply to showcause notice will be studied by DMRC heads before final action is taken

What Gammon says
In an official statement on Tuesday,Gammon said: “We have learnt that we would be issued a show-cause notice asking for reasons why we should not be blacklisted for two years. However we are yet to receive the committee report and the show-cause notice. On receipt we shall study observations of the committee and suitably respond to the show-cause notice.”
* Meanwhile,trains on Dwarka Sector-9 to Yamuna Bank line were running about 15 minutes late on Tuesday evening due to operational problems.