CITY | Monday, July 27, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Mafiosi rules
Sidharth Mishra
A golden opportunity has been lost to purge the construction work, going on at the various Metro sites in the national capital region, of the control of criminal syndicates. One may find this very startling but the problem with us is that we are very hesitant in diagnosing a disease in a holy cow, which the Delhi Metro is. When I talk of criminal mafiosi holding sway in the national capital, I really do not hold the Metro Man E Sreedharan guilty for it. It’s the system, which has taken grip over the construction work of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).
The system has the criminal mafiosi as its integral part. The organised crime syndicates have channelised their ill-gotten funds into the construction and real-estate industry. The criminal-politician nexus has ensured that most of the construction tenders are awarded to the companies, which have mafia stakes. No there isn’t an allusion to Gammon India being a mafia run company. But can the directors of the huge construction firm vouch for each of their sub-contractors and petty contractors? Can they certify that the owners of the petty contract and sub-contract firms employed by them are people with no criminal antecedent?
I do not know if the readers recall Ashok Malhotra, the infamous main accused in the Chole Gate real estate scam involving leading officials of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). When the scam broke out, the investments made by this scamster into various projects including the Delhi Metro was also discussed. However, as soon as the Metro name cropped up, the discussions died down. Over the years we have come to live with the mindset that nothing could go wrong with the Metro.
Traveling through Bihar by train way back in 2001-02, I recall a co-passenger mentioning the interests of a Bihar mafia don in the tenders of Delhi Metro. This particular don controlled the award of the railway and road contracts north of the Ganga especially North-East Railways. The co-passenger, who himself worked as a petty contractor for the don’s company, gleefully went onto the share the ‘engineering marvels’ of the don and how his company was meeting all the world-class standards.
I believed each word of his as he spoke with conviction and experience of having successfully ‘executed’ several tenders. He had boarded train from Barhaiya (those who know Bihar would know where Barhaiya is) on way to Patna for a conference with the don, who had for time being had turned Beur Jail in Patna into his corporate office-cum-residence. This don was later to become a Member of Parliament.
As we neared Patna, he said the unthinkable. “Bhai Sahab has also got now contracts with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. I am going to request him to give me a chance there too,” he said. “You are talking nonsense. How can you ever think of breaching national pride,” I retorted. “You find it difficult to believe but we (alluding to the don) are the most experienced and trusted railway contractors today,” he said. He explained how the don and his since deceased acolyte Sriprakash Shukla had wrestled the railway contracts away from the erstwhile mafia of Virendra Shahi and Hari Shankar Tiwari.
He went to explain that the massive magnitude of the tenders which were to be floated by the Delhi Metro over the next few years would require huge mobilisation of manpower and machinery. “Where would it all come from? Do you think that the principal contractors are going to buy so much of machinery? They would further outsource the contracts and there is nothing illegal about it,” he said and de-boarded. I prayed that whatever he said never came true.
Several years later came the critically acclaimed Arshad Warsi-starrer Sehar,the story of gunning down of Sriprakash Shukla in an encounter on the outskirts of the national capital. Shukla, who had a meteoric rise in the underworld, ruled roost in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and had spread tentacles to the national capital region. Sehar made direct references to Shukla vying for contracts in the Metro Rail project. Thereafter there was the whisper campaign on alleged involvement of Ashok Malhotra through his relatives in the contractor firms. So when the pillars started to tumble and cranes turned turtle last fortnight, I thought it’s time to believe, though grudgingly, the co-passenger.
I am sure that the DMRC is going to send a strong rejoinder saying the allegations being made are outrageous. These are some of the doubts which have been raised about the functioning of the Delhi Metro. My suggestion is that DMRC should use this opportunity to carry a verification drive on the antecedents of the sub-contractor and petty-contractor firms. They should come out with a white paper. But would Sreedharan and his political patrons have the will for doing it? I doubt it. Meeting the deadline is more important, means for achieving it really do not matter.
Email | Print | Rate:
|