Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has decided not to take any more chances with regard to the safety of the showpiece Airport Metro Express.
As per a report in a leading daily, the DMRC will replace not only some 500 defective bearings but also the grouting beneath them.
A DMRC official told the daily that they will also install steel pedestals under the bearings in order to ensure quality control.
The decision has been taken after a joint panel of the DMRC and concessionaire Reliance Infrastructure discovered that the grouting under the bearings had disintegrated at several places.
The DMRC is inspecting not only the 540 defective bearings but all the 2100 bearings on the line that. It plans to replace any bearing that has even a minimal defect.
With the scope of repair works expanding, the deadline to reopen the line has been extended by a month from August-end to September-end.
The development came even as another report claimed that more than 11,000 tension clamps on the line had developed cracks in December last year.
However, the DMRC chose to ignore the warning signs and continued operations on the high-speed line, thereby risking the lives of passengers.
This revelation was made in the report of the Research Designs and Standard Organisation (RDSO), a research body of the Railway Ministry, which carried out inspections on the line in March this year.
The report states the speed on the line was reduced from around 105 kmph to 80 kmph after cracks in the tension clamps were detected. While the operator replaced the damaged clamps immediately, the new ones also started to crack, leading to serious safety concerns.
While the ministry sounded the warning bells, the DMRC suspiciously chose to stay mum, the report said.
Tension clamps were procured from a German firm named Vossloh, notwithstanding the fact that its fasteners had witnessed failures in Germany and China as well in the past.
First Published: Tuesday, August 07, 2012, 10:11