Six Delhi Metro officials have been held responsible for the Zamrudpur accident and they may get marching orders. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Monday called an emergency meeting of its board of directors and placed the committee report's looking into the July 12 accident.
Sources said DMRC managing director E Sreedharan discussed the findings of the three-member inquiry committee and also apprised the board about the action he intended to take against officials who erred in their duty.
Sreedharan is expected to announce the action taken report on Tuesday evening.
Six people had died when a cantilever pier gave away near Zamrudpur, an urban village in South Delhi, on Metro's under-construction Central Secretariat - Badarpur line.
Pier no 67, which collapsed on the fateful day, had developed a hairline crack in March this year and work on the pier was suspended. It was only after the DMRC officials investigated the crack and gave a go ahead that work resumed. However, the cantilever collapsed within few days of resuming work.
Sreedharan later admitted that there was a design fault with the cantilever. Cracks have been noticed in eight more cantilever piers on Central Secretariat - Badarpur line by DMRC engineers.
Highly placed sources said officials in the design team, who inspected the crack and later approved fixing of a steel strut to support the cantilever, would bear the brunt.
Rajan Kataria, chief of design section, who was included in the inquiry committee, was removed from the committee after HT wrote about it.
DMRC is also expected to blacklist Arch Consultants, the agency that designed the cantilever piers, and bar it from participating in future DMRC projects. Gammon India would also be penalised for the accident, sources said.