KOCHI: Metroman E. Sreedharan on Thursday expressed disappointment over the manner in which Kerala Government failed to sign the agreement for the preparatory works for the Light Metro project in Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.

Talking to reporters here, the Principal Adviser to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said Chief Minister denied him an audience to discuss the projects.”Am parting with pain,” Sreedharan said.

“After the Government issued orders to begin the preliminary works in December, 2016, the DMRC opened two offices. Since then we have had these offices and every month we were paying Rs. 16 lakhs towards maintaining the offices. It has now become a huge burden,” he said.

“We are just safeguarding our interests as we cannot go forward spending Rs. 16 lakhs every month without getting a job,” Sreedharan added.

According to Sreedharan, he had periodically conveyed the work progress to Chief Minister and PWD Minister. “We were waiting for the Government response. We expected it to give us work to go ahead, but it never came. We did a lot of work for this and now we cannot go on like this.”

As the Government continued to be passive to its pleas, the DMRC sent an ultimatum on January 24. “As there was still no response to it, we had to pull out.”

Refuting the Chief Minister’s claim that the validity of the project had expired, Sreedharan said there was no validity given in the order issued by the Government.

“Only the DMRC has the technical knowledge on implementing the Light Metro project in a cheap and fast manner,” Sreedharan said.