New Delhi: Delhi Metro managing director Mangu Singh, whose tenure was nearing completion, was granted a four-year extension on Friday. Mr Singh, who had assumed charged on January 1, 2012, had succeeded ‘Metro Man’ E. Sreedharan as the Delhi Metro chief. The development comes even though the Delhi Metro’s Phase III project is running behind schedule due to land acquisition issues.
He will continue to lead Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), a joint venture of the Centre and the Delhi government, till December 2020. The Delhi government had earlier proposed a five-year extension to Mr Singh, who was to hang his boots on December 31.
“The govt of NCT of Delhi, in accordance with provisions of Article 130 of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of DMRC and after obtaining concurrence of the Central government, is pleased to extend the tenure of Mangu Singh up to 14.12.2020,” read the order signed by the transport secretary of the Delhi government.
Mr Singh is an Indian Railways Service of Engineers (IRSE) officer of the 1981 batch. He has been associated with the Delhi Metro since its inception.
Mr Singh has contributed in the project implementation of Metro in Delhi and Kolkata and has been responsible for bringing revolutionary changes in the execution of large Metro engineering projects (civil) within tight deadlines and budget and is considered the foremost tunneling expert. He is also the President of the Tunneling Association of India (TAI).
He has introduced new technologies and innovative methods of construction of Metro tunnels and structures to achieve economy, safety, quality and speed of construction. The credit for using Shield Tunnel Boring Machines and introducing New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) for the first time in the country goes to Mr Singh.
In addition, he has successfully led the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects of Delhi Metro, the only such successful project in the Railway Transportation sector in the world. He has been instrumental in preparing the Master Plan and Detailed Project Reports for Metro system in other cities of the country such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Kochi, Jaipur, Ludhiana and Ahmedabad.
His experience includes rail based transportation projects, its planning and execution, procurement of works and services for Mega Projects on Design and Build Contracts basis, handling multilateral funding agencies, development of bid documents for metro projects on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis, management of Concession contracts and CDM projects.
