DNA:
Mumbai: Thursday, 05 March 2015.
Mumbai Metro
One Private Limited (MMOPL) should be considered a public authority, that is,
under the purview of the Right to Information act. That was the unequivocal
stand of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) about
its metro rail partner, with which it has shared a turbulent relationship over
the years. MMRDA's statement echoes dna's public interest campaign which has
consistently stated that MMOPL should be considered to be under the RTI act.
What is
MMRDA's reasoning?
On Wednesday,
MMRDA made the statement as part of its oral submission to the state
information commission's (SIC) division bench. The bench, comprising the state
chief information commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad and information commissioner
(Brihanmumbai bench) Ajit Kumar Jain, was hearing a complaint made by activist
Shailesh Gandhi.
In its
submission, MMRDA said MMOPL should be declared a public authority, because the
state government has contributed land for the car depot, funds as well as right
of way (ROW) used by the metro.
What does
MMOPL say?
Reliance
Infrastructure-led MMOPL, with MMRDA, operates and maintains the city's first
metro railway, which spans 11.4 km and links Versova, Andheri and Ghatkopar. In
its answer, MMOPL disagreed with MMRDA, saying funds provided by the state were
only 26 percent of the total, which, due to cost escalation, had come down to
14 percent. Since Reliance Infrastructure's 69 percent with Veolia's five
percent amounted to 74 percent, most of the financing was done by Reliance
itself, MMOPL said. Substantial financing by the government, therefore, was out
of question.
Who
controls the metro?
MMOPL also stated that the control of
day-to-day functioning was with Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra). It stated
that eight of 11 directors on the board were appointed by RInfra and hence the
control was with RInfra and not the government. The complainant Gandhi stated
that control should not be understood as “complete control” or “ownership”. He
argued that MMRDA directors had some bearing on the decision-making of the
organisation. He said, “26 percent funding is essential for running a company.”
Gandhi said that the government had pumped in Rs 783 crores by way of equity
and viability gap funding, which was a substantial amount.
The
information commission's bench has yet to give a date for the next hearing.
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