Year on, CM yet to see inquiry report on monorail glitch

When a Mumbai monorail suffered a technical glitch last year, resulting in emergency evacuation of 11 passengers, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was quick to order an inquiry into the matter. A year down the line, however, he is yet to go through the inquiry report, proving once again that the bureaucratic and political brass has long forgotten the incident.

On March 15 last year, a monorail train with 11 passengers had come to a halt near Bhakti Park. Mumbai fire brigade's help was taken to rescue the commuters. Within a few hours of the incident, CM Fadnavis had ordered an inquiry. Now, though the inquiry report is ready, it is yet to reach the CM's desk.

After finalising the report, as per procedure, the Urban Development Department had forwarded it to the chief secretary's office. Since then, it has been gathering dust there, said an Urban Development Department official.

According to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), last year's incident was caused due to power failure from the primary supply line as well as the back-up (alternate) source. As a result, passengers had a harrowing time and had to wait for over an hour before the rescue team arrived.

On Monday, too, a monorail train got stuck near the Bhakti Park monorail station. The incident, however, took place before the system opened for operations. It took half a day to move away the problematic train, which crippled the services along the 8.93km Wadala Depot-Chembur route.