In the run up to the suspension of operations of the Airport Metro, DMRC and Reliance Infra were at loggerheads on running the line, according to latest documents.

Such was the lack of trust on both sides that DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh had told senior Urban Development and Railway officials that since the repairs carried out by his team might not be accepted as satisfactory, it was better that the operator company carry them out.

Reliance Infra on its part had also called DMRC's repair work as cosmetic. Its CEO Sumit Banerjee had suggested that there was a possibility of derailment and demanded that the DMRC should indemnify the operator against any incident.

Sources said that a meeting had been called by UD secretary Sudhir Krishna on July 2, and top officials of DMRC, Dhirubhai Ambani Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL), Railways and Delhi Government had been invited to discuss the defects in the high speed Airport Express line.

The minutes of this meeting prepared by UD ministry, which have been accessed by PTI, reveal that there was hardly any common ground between DMRC and Reliance Infra.

As per these minutes, N S Shekhawat, the project head of DAMEPL in a presentation displayed photographs of the defects in the civil works. Shekhawat pointed out that visual inspection of all the 2,100 bearings on the airport line had been carried out and 250-300 of them were critical.

He said that as a result of this fault, the high speed airport metro was just about crawling at 25 km per hour.

Reliance Infra CEO Sumit Banerjee added as per a report of consultants hired by them, the margin of safety had at several sections been eroded and shut down of the operations was necessary for effective repairs.

However, DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh took a diametrically opposite view saying that though he had been shown many photographs, most of the faults had been rectified so these may not reflect the exact condition.