Services of Delhi Metro blue line were delayed due to a major technical issue on Tuesday at 8 am, following which several commuters, largely office goers, faced hardship.
However, The Delhi Metro senior official said that the repair work of the line will be conducted only in the night for three hours to fully resolve the issue. While the commuters also claimed that the metro is running at a very low speed than the normal and every train is delayed for 15 minutes.
The Blue Line connects Dwarka Sector-21 in Delhi and Electronic City in Noida with a branch at Yamuna Bank to Vaishali.
The snag was reported early morning and the Delhi Metro tweeted around 8 am to alert commuters, which in the morning hours largely comprised office-goers.
"Blue Line Update: Delay in services from Indraprastha to Yamuna Bank. Normal service on all other lines," it tweeted.
In a statement, the Delhi Metro said train services are affected between Indraprastha and Yamuna Bank stations of the Blue Line since morning because of a "suspected case of cable theft" on the down line.
"This has resulted in track circuit drop (signalling issue) in this section restricting the trains to move in manual mode in limited speed of up to 25 kmph only," a senior official said.
Because of this issue, there will be minor bunching of trains between these two stations, the DMRC said. Vani Bhatia, who stays in Noida and commutes to Delhi, said, "Today, the train I boarded from Noida Sector 52 station was running at a normal speed. But, as soon as it reached Akshardham, all commuters were asked to deboard with frequent announcements being made that there was a technical snag. The next metro arrived after 15 minutes," she said.
Many commuters took to Twitter to share the hardships they were facing and reminded Delhi Metro that the Blue Line was witnessing snags a bit too frequently in the last two months.
DMRC officials said the restoration work on the affected stretch of the Blue Line will be completed on Tuesday night after the closure of revenue services. This is because "access to track" will be necessary for up to three hours to identify the exact location of the theft and carry out necessary replacement work, they said.
"To inform passengers about the matter, announcements are being made at the stations and inside the trains on Blue Line. The information has also been shared through social media," an official said.
Services on the Blue Line of the Delhi Metro were delayed for over two hours due to a technical snag on June 9. On June 6, services on the Blue Line were impacted for nearly an hour-and-a-half due to a technical snag caused by a bird hit. Recently, DMRC chief Vikas Kumar, when asked about several technical snags being reported on Delhi Metro corridors, particularly on the Blue Line, had said, "Most of these were overhead equipment issues caused by bird hit and birds dropping something on it. In our report submitted to the Delhi transport department, we have mentioned that".
According to Delhi Metro officials, there have been seven instances wherein Metro services were impacted ranging from few minutes to couple of hours.
In four minor incidences, the services were delayed for few minutes on a very limited section to undertake the troubleshooting of the impacted train or signaling system, which is a normal procedure in such a vast technical set up which keeps providing safe, reliable and punctual Metro services for most part of the day throughout the year.
In remaining three incidents, two on the Blue Line and one on the Yellow Line, the services were affected for about one to two hours. "None of these incidences were result of a technical failure," claimed official.
However, the Delhi Metro officials also said that these incidents cause due to external factors resulting into breakdown of a component of Over Head Equipment (OHE) like a bird caught in between charged wires or some foreign materials such as cable, kite maanjha strings etc. being dropped by birds or flown through windstorm etc. hitting the exposed OHE and causing flashing incidents.
