New Delhi, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said here on Thursday the state government and the central government were equal partners in Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the Centre had no right to “dictate” or “suggest” as who it should nominate to the DMRC board.
He stated this in a letter to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), a day after the Ministry wrote to the city government to withdraw the recent nomination of “four private individuals” to the DMRC board.
On July 13, Gahlot had nominated Aam Aadmi Party leaders Atishi and Raghav Chadha, vice-chairperson of the Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission Jasmine Shah, and Naveen Gupta, son of AAP Rajya Sabha MP N.D. Gupta, as the Delhi government nominees to the board.
Gahlot said the MoHUA’s earlier letter relied upon the March 16, 1992 guidelines of the Department of Public Enterprises. “A perusal of these guidelines shows they, in fact, say quite the opposite of what the central government wants us to do,” the letter read. “These guidelines strongly recommend that non-government officials should be nominated as board members,” he said.
“The Department of Public Enterprise instructed all government departments to bring down the number of government directors on board of PSUs to two. In the case of DMRC, out of 17 directors, 6 are government officials (5 central government nominees and the MD who is a Delhi government nominee).
“It’s much more than what has been prescribed by central government guidelines. Therefore, nomination of 4 non-government officials by the Delhi government is in accordance with the central government guidelines,” the Minister said.
