Power supply glitch hits Metro, trains crawl, commuters suffer

NEW DELHI: Passengers travelling on the Blue and Yellow lines of Delhi Metro faced a harrowing time on Thursday afternoon after a glitch in the power supply to some of the stations.

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Passengers travelling on the Samaipur Badli-HUDA City Center and Dwarka-Noida/ Vaishali lines were stuck for as long as an hour as a substation feeding power to these lines stopped supply.

“I boarded the train from An and Vi har.T he train reached Preet Vihar and was stopped there for 15 minutes. The train operator made an announcement about power disruptions. I had to then get down at Preet Vihar and take an auto to ITO,” said Jagdish Setia, a resident of Surajmal Vihar.

“Supply was not available from Delhi Trans co Limited, due to which the Sub hash Na gar,Dw ark a, Chattarpur and airport substations stopped power to these two lines. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) ran curtailed services with less frequency by drawing power from other sources,” said a DMRC spokesperson.

The power supply, which snapped around 12:30pm, was restored at Subhash Nagar and Dwarka substations at 1.14pm and at Chattarpur and airport substations at 1.30pm only.

A Delhi Transco Limited official said there was a technical problem at Bamnauli substation, which has a capacity of 400KV. “A 220-KV line had tripped. However, the problem was fixed in 30 minutes,” the official said.

Passengers, however, complained that the trains were being made to stop at every station for at least 10 minutes.

“I boarded a Metro train at Nir man Vihar towards Dwarka around 12:30 pm. The train halted for more than five minutes at the station before the door were closed. Then there was an announcement that due to problems in the power supply system, there would be a short delay. I waited for almost 20 minutes before finally giving up and booking a cab,” said Sadhna, a regular commuter.