Monday blues on Metro

It was a terrible Monday morning for thousands of Delhi Metro commuters as a technical snag disrupted services for more than two hours on lines 3 and 4 from Dwarka to Noida and Vaishali.

Commuters were stranded at overcrowded stations and huge rush was witnessed at stations like Karol Bagh, Rajiv Chowk, Barakhamba Road and Jhandewalan. 

According to a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) official, there was a problem in an insulator on the overhead electrification (OHE) between Shadipur and Patel Nagar which led to the situation. 

With no space left for commuters even to stand at stations, the two-hour technical fault that hit the blue line, caused a lot of trouble for passengers. The frequency of trains was reduced with most trains halting for 15 to 20 minutes at the stations along the route.

“I was stuck at the Karol Bagh station for 20 minutes. After the train arrived, it was jam-packed with commuters and there was hardly any space. Further, the train was moving very slow and it took me more than an hour  to reach Mayur Vihar,” said Rahul Raj, a commuter.

Many commuters complained that there were neither proper announcements nor proper display of upcoming stations inside the trains.

A Delhi Metro spokesperson said that the problem was detected at 1.11pm and was rectified by 3.12pm. Services had to be diverted on a single line between Kirti Nagar and Patel Nagar during the affected period, which resulted in delays on the entire corridor by eight to ten minutes, he said.

“In urban mass rapid Metro operations, overhead electric supply poles are located at a distance of 40 metres with two insulators on each OHE mast. Thus, electrical engineers had to locate the faulty insulator from 200 such insulators,” added the spokesperson.

The 49-km blue line covers 43 stations in some of the most populous parts of the capital and is the longest Delhi  route.