The government has extended the tenure of Mangu Singh as the managing director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation till March 31, 2022, according to an official order issued on Wednesday. The extension comes amid the ongoing work on Ph-IV of the Delhi Metro network, as new construction and operations were severely hit earlier due to the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns it had induced.
Singh’s tenure as MD of DMRC began from January 1, 2012 after his predecessor E Sreedharan had handed over charge to him on December 31, 2011.
“The Govt. of NCT of Delhi, in accordance with the provisions of Article 130 of the Memorandum and Article of Association of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited, and after obtaining concurrence of the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Govt. of India vide letter dated 28.09.2021 is pleased to extend the tenure of Shri Mangu Singh as Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited up to 31.03.2022,” reads the order.
The order has been issued by the transport department authorities of the Delhi government.
Delhi Metro’s operations were halted for over five months due to the COVID-19 pandemic that started in early 2020.
During the 169-day period when metro services were suspended starting March 22, 2020, the DMRC had suffered loss worth nearly Rs 1300 crore, sources had earlier said.
Following guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Delhi Metro had resumed operations in a graded manner on September 7, 2020 under Singh’s leadership, and running the metro services while adhering to Covid norms to ensure safety of the public is challenging for the DMRC.
In an interview to PTI in September 2020, Singh had said, “Restarting of services was not done on consideration of generating revenue or bringing ridership, but to connect people and contribute to revival of the economy”.
Again, in 2021 amid the second wave of the pandemic which started in April, services were again suspended for a long hiatus, and were resumed from June 7 with limited capacity for seating passengers.
In the September 2020 interview, he had also said that the COVID-19 situation had affected the Delhi Metro’s Ph-IV work, but the ongoing project would get delayed only by a couple of months and, therefore, “won’t entail much cost escalation”.
The Union Cabinet, in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in March 2019 had approved three out of the six corridors of the Delhi Metro’s proposed Phase IV which will further improve connectivity in the national capital.
Under approved segment of Phase-IV, 61.679-km of new metro lines shall be constructed across three different corridors comprising 45 metro stations. These new sections shall provide interconnectivity among the already operational lines of the Delhi Metro.
According to the government, the Mukundpur-Maujpur, R K Ashram-Janakpuri West and Aero City-Tughlakabad corridors were approved by the Cabinet.
The DMRC network’s current span is nearly 392 km with 286 stations including the Noida-Greater Noida Metro corridor and Rapid Metro.
Singh has contributed greatly in the project implementation of metros in Delhi and Kolkata and has been responsible for bringing revolutionary changes in the execution of large metro engineering projects (civil) within tight deadlines and budget, and is considered the foremost tunneling expert, the DMRC had earlier said.
