Made nominations in DMRC to protect interests of people: Delhi to Centre

NEW DELHI: Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot on Thursday replied to Union Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs over nomination of directors for Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. "Delhi Government and Central government are 50:50 partners in DMRC. Therefore, one partner has no right to suggest/dictate the other partner who should be nominated as its nominees. Delhi government has made nominations taking in account their background and after being convinced that they shall be able to protect the interests of the people of Delhi as well as the interests of Delhi Government," Gahlot stated in his letter.

It is pertinent to mention that the Centre on Wednesday wrote a letter to the Delhi government asking it to withdraw the nomination of four representatives from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as directors of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) instead of government officials citing Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) guidelines.

The Delhi government nominated AAP leaders are Raghav Chadha, Atishi, party Rajya Sabha member ND Gupta's son Naveen Gupta and Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDCD) vice-chairperson Jasmine Shah.

According to the guidelines issued by the Department of Public Enterprises i.e issued vide OM No. 18(6)/91-GM dated 16th March, 1992. A perusal of these guidelines shows that these guidelines, in fact, say quite the opposite of what Central Government wants us to do.

Delhi Transport Minister further cited that Department of Public Enterprise vide DPE OM. No. 2(19)/99-GM dated 25.01.2000 instructed all Government Departments to bring down the number of Government Directors on Board of Directors of PSUs to two. In the case of DMRC, out of a total strength of 17 Directors, presently there are 6 Directors who are Government officers (5 Central Government nominees and the MD who is a Delhi Government Nominee). This is much more than what has been prescribed by Central Government guidelines. Therefore, nomination of 4 Non-Government officials by Delhi Government is in accordance with the Central Government guidelines.

In fact, these guidelines strongly recommend that non-government officials should be nominated as Board Members. "The induction of Non-Official Directors on the Boards of PSEs has been considered essential by various Committees and commissions in order to make the Boards more professional," said Delhi Transport minister.

In fact, there are innumerable instances when Central Government has itself nominated private individuals on the Boards of various PSEs. For instance, Shazia Ilmi and Sambit Patra, both political persons, are Directors on the Board of Engineers India Limited and ONGC respectively. What domain expertise do these individuals have? "Late Madal Lal Khurana was appointed as a Director and Chairman of DMRC by the previous NDA Government. What domain expertise did he have? In sharp contrast, two of our nominees are Chartered Accountants & one of them is an Engineer from IIT (M)," said Delhi Transport minister.