In the third accident involving the Delhi Metro in the past 10 days, a labourer was killed after he was hit by a steel beam being lifted by a crane at a construction site in West Delhi today.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation chief E Sreedharan put the blame for the accident on the contractor.

The incident took place at around 5:45am at the work site of the Ashok Park metro station in Punjabi Bagh. The labourer was hit by the beam which was being lifted by the crane.

“The beam was being lifted for staging work at the station when the incident happened,” Sreedharan told reporters. “The incident took place only because the chain of the crane used to lift the beam snapped.”

The station is part of the under-construction Inderlok-Mundka line of the Delhi metro network.

The semi-skilled worker, identified as Vicky Singh (22), hailed from Uttar Pradesh. Singh was guiding the crane’s movement. Prima facie, it appears that the beam hit him on the shoulder. He was rushed to the nearby Maharaja Agrasen Hospital where he died.

Sreedharan blamed the contractor, IDEB-SUCG Joint Venture, for the accident, saying the crane used by the contractor was new and the slings used were “not certified”.

“We have a very rigorous system of checking our lifting substances. In this case, the contractor got a new crane, a new operator and slings. Nobody checked it,” he said.

Sreedharan said the victim “should have also been a little careful in guiding the beam”.

DMRC chief PRO Anuj Dayal said there was no structural collapse in the incident. The chief project manager in-charge of the Inderlok-Mundka line and the metro safety team are investigating the incident, he said. A first information report has been lodged.

The third accident in 10 days at metro construction sites in the national capital raises questions about safety at such sites. On July 12, six persons were killed and 15 injured when a pillar at an under-construction metro bridge collapsed near the Lady Sri Ram College in South Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar.

A day after the incident, at least six persons were injured in another accident at the same site while the debris of the previous accident was being cleared.

The latest incident came on the very day when the four-member committee appointed to look into the causes of the July 12 mishap submitted its report.

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