Commuters had to face tough times on Tuesday afternoon when the services of the Delhi Metro's Red Line were affected for around three hours on Tuesday due to overhead equipment issues between the Pratap Nagar and Shastri Nagar stations. The Delhi Metro Rail's Red Line connects Rithala in Delhi to Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh.

The train services from Tis Hazari to Inderlok on the Red Line were affected from 01:04 pm to 03.51 pm when a portion of contact wire (part of OHE) got broken between Pratap Nagar and Shastri Nagar section as a train was heading towards Rithala (Down Line) around 01:04 pm.

During this period, regular train services were maintained from Rithala to Inderlok section of the Red Line through Up and Down movement in one loop, according to Delhi Metro official. Regular train services were maintained from Tis Hazari to Shaheed Sthal (New Bus Adda) section.

The breach in the major changing line i.e. Kashmiri Gate affected the metro travellers because of extreme rush and delayed services for a very long time on the red line. A commuter at the Kanhaiya Nagar metro station who was returning home from the office said, “Daryaganj se Kanhaiya Nagar aane mein 1.5 ghanta lag gya” (it took me 1.5 hours from Daryaganj to Kanhaiya Nagar). People had to wait for nearly 25 minutes at every station which connected with the red line.

Although the regular train services were maintained from Rithala to Inderlok section of the red line through both the up and down movement on the same track in one loop, the number of trains had been reduced. Huge crowds still waited at the platforms waiting for the metro.

With this delay in the red line, the commuters on twitter came harshly on DMRC with other service problems on the line. An ‘X’ user @poojnishhudda wrote criticizing DMRC, “The Red line metro services are always like that. No sufficient metro timings. People have to wait for such a long time. Metro services are to save our time, not to delay. Kindly see to the matter.” Another user wrote, “what about the insane delay between mansarovar park and kashmere gate?”.

“The repair work was over by 03.51 pm and thereafter regular train services on the entire Red Line from Rithala to Shaheed Sthal (New Bus Adda) were normalised.” said Anuj Dayal, Principal Executive Director, Corporate Communication, Delhi Metro.