Posterboy DMRC’s environmental track record found wanting

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Editor's note: Last week brought bad news for the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. The public sector company, best known for operating metro trains efficiently in India’s capital, faced severe criticism from two influential quarters.  First it was the Supreme Court and a couple of days later, the Comptroller and Auditor General. Both severely criticized certain aspects relating to the planning and execution of the metro rail project of the DMRC, as the corporation is alternatively called. While the criticisms were about multiple aspects of the metro rail project, what stood out starkly among them was the strong criticism made by both the SC and CAG of the environmental track record of Delhi Metro. “Projects such as the metro railway in question have already been implemented in parts of NCT of Delhi/NCR. One cannot lose sight of the fact that it has resulted in loss of vegetation as well as flora and fauna in certain areas,” said the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Nageswara Rao in its order handed down on 29 November.  But that was not all. The …