The Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot on Wednesday issued a notice to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for taking such a long time in evacuating the passenger from the stalled trains. He also claimed, DMRC informed the department and Minister about the incident after the transport office got in touch with DMRC. The Minister also sought details of all incidents of breakdown in services of the Delhi Metro since 2011, with reasons for such disruptions, from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's (DMRC) managing director.
"On being contacted by my office, the DMRC sent the incident report. As per this report, the trains got stuck at 9.27 am due to an overhead electric cable fault and the evacuation started at 9.45 am. Evacuation of train no 6709 was completed by 11.10 am, while the evacuation of another train no 6732 was completed at 11.21 am. Would it mean that, while in one case, the evacuation was done in 1 hour and 25 minutes and in the other, it took 1.42 hours. The time, taken to evacuate the passengers from the train appears to be very high," said Gahlot in the statement issued to the DMRC.
A technical glitch hit the services on the Yellow Line for nearly four hours, leaving thousands of passengers stranded on the road, trapped in coaches and traffic snarls from South Delhi to Gurugram.
The Minister also issued directiona, saying that the "DMRC must inform the commuters about such incidents immediately through its Twitter handle so that the commuters do not panic and (they) are kept informed."
Gahlot further asked the DMRC's managing director that responsibility needs to be fixed for the breakdown of services on the Yellow Line. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal earlier directed Gahlot to seek a detailed report and direct the Delhi Metro to fix responsibility for the disruption.
"The Transport Commission had to get in touch with the managing director for details of the break down. Such incidents must be reported to them immediately," said Gahlot in the statement.
However, the DMRC said, "Due to tripping of power supply, two trains which were in this section (Train-1 between Qutab Minar & Chattarpur and, Train-2 between Chattarpur & Sultanpur) went immobile and it was decided to deboard the passengers and take them smoothly towards the nearest Metro station. Special assistance was provided to 11 commuters (differently abled/not feeling well)."
DMRC official further said that the passengers (more than 4,000) stuck inside the train were safely taken from Train-1 were safely taken from the trains.
"It is noteworthy to mention that the deboarding process takes time as it requires use of emergency gate and also to ensure that no passenger's safety is at risk which included women, senior citizens and some Divyang passengers also, who were facilitated with wheel chairs.In the meantime, to ensure that services are available uninterrupted on rest of the sections on Yellow line, DMRC introduced short loop services," said DMRC.
The DMRC further said that the passengers were also provided drinking water at stations during this period. "Centralised announcements were regularly being done from the Centralised Operations Control Room (OCC) at the stations. CISF QRT (Quick Response Team) and Delhi Metro Rail Police (DMRP) were deployed at the stations to manage the passenger rush," said the DMRC official.