Projects delayed, costs go up for Delhi Metro

The Delhi government did not offer a comment on the issue.

“The reason for the delay has primarily been lack of permission from the Delhi government’s environment department; files related to around 9 such projects were pending with the department till as recently as December last year,” a source said.

“These files were recalledby the Lieutenant Governor’s Secretariat beginning early December 2022 and all of them have been cleared over the last two months following the L-G’s intervention,” the source added.

According to sources, theprojects are part of the Janakpuri to RK Ashram, Aerocity to Tughlakabad and Maujpur to Majlis Park corridors; the combined cost overrun for all the projects is around Rs 1,600 crore.

Due to the delays, a senior official explained, fresh bids for construction had to be called as per the re-tendering of work on these corridors on more occasions than one.

“If a project is not completed on time due to one reason or another, the work is, after a certain interval, put up for a tender bid again. During this period, the cost of everything from construction material and labour among other components usually increases,” the official stated.

“In the case of these projects, the projected cost initially was Rs 10,479.66 crore and is now estimated to be Rs 12,048.50 crore,” the official added.

The project with the lowest delay, of over three months, is the construction of an underground ramp at Krishna Park Extension over a stretch of 2.01 kilometres with an initial cost of an estimated Rs 489 crore. Following the delay, the hiked total cost of construction is now estimated to have gone up to over Rs 550 crore, the official said.

Similarly, the official said, construction of the line from Sangam Vihar to Saket, over a stretch of around 4.2 kilometres, has been delayed for the longest period, that is by over 30 months. Its initial cost was Rs 726.08 crore, which is now estimated to have gone up to Rs 1,100 crore.

A line measuring over 12 km on the Maujpur to Majlis Park corridor, supposed to initially cost

Rs 10.80 crore for construction between Yamuna Vihar to Bhajanpura and Sonia Vihar to Khajuri Khas and Sonia Vihar to Yamuna Bridge, is now expected to cost around Rs 16.50 crore, the official added.