Snag disrupts Metro services yet again

Services on the snag-prone line 2 (Jahangirpuri-Huda City Centre) were again severely disrupted on Thursday morning, leaving thousands of commuters fuming. HT reports.

Services on the snag-prone line 2 (Jahangirpuri-Huda City Centre) were again severely disrupted on Thursday morning, leaving thousands of commuters fuming.

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The disruption comes six days after a problem in the interlocking system stalled Delhi Metro service on line 3 (Dwarka-Noida/Anand Vihar).

Though the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation termed Thursday’s snag a ‘minor fault’, commuters had a different story to tell. Many of the commuters, who bought tickets for AIIMS, INA, Jor Bagh or Gurgaon, had to deboard at Rajiv Chowk, Patel Chowk or Central Secretariat following announcements for the same by the Delhi Metro.

Commuters said trains were moving at a very slow speed and with long halts at stations towards Gurgaon.

A DMRC spokesperson said, “The services on line 2 were affected due to minor interlocking problem between the INA and Hauz Khas section. This technical problem led to slow movement of trains in that section between 10.53am and 11.39am. Services returned to normal on the stretch after that.”

As an immediate effect of the technical problem, Metro services came to a halt for about 10 minutes at INA Metro station and later started moving at a restricted speed (about 20 km per hour). This caused bunching of trains on the track and services returned to normal only by 2pm, said sources.

DMRC’s director (operations) Raj Kumar could not be contacted for comment despite repeated attempts. Hundreds of people could be seen waiting for trains at Rajiv Chowk, Patel Chowk and Central Secretariat stations till afternoon.

Rajni Gupta, who boarded a train at Model Town around noon, said it took her nearly one-and-a-half-hours to reach Race Course.

“The train was jam-packed and was moving very slowly.

It stopped at Rajiv Chowk for nearly 20 minutes and again halted at Central Secretariat for another 20 minutes. It was a terrible journey,” Gupta added.

Delhi Metro though claimed that the glitch did not affect the metro service on the parallel line (Huda City Centre to Jahangirpuri), commuters on the line complained about massive delays.

“I boarded a train at Arjangarh around 12.30pm and reached Central Secretariat at around 2 pm,” said Sandeep Sarkar, a commuter.