Thousands of Metro commuters had a harrowing experience during the evening peak hours on Wednesday as a major technical fault disrupted metro services on the Dwarka-Noida/Vaishali line. Scores of people returning from their offices were literally stranded when an overhead electric cable broke down on the Yamuna Bank-Indraprastha station stretch. Although full services were restored after one-and-a-half hours, Rajiv Chowk and Barakhamba stations were chock-a-block with people waiting for the Metro. It was for the first time that an Over-Head Electrification (OHE) wire had snapped in the Delhi Metro service ever since its inception.
The snag-prone 44-km Dwarka-Noida/ Vaishali line (line 3) caters to about eight lakh commuters a day. The Wednesday’s incident led to chaos in several stations. “It was at 5:56 pm that a Dwarka-bound train got stuck about 150 metres away from the Indraprastha station while it was coming from Yamuna Bank station. The service was disrupted as the pantograph of the train got entangled with a strand of the Over-Head Electrification (OHE) wire,” said an official of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). The incident took place at a time when metro runs at an interval of only two to three minutes making it the busiest corridor.
The Rajiv Chowk station, which is usually crowded during the evening peak hour on working days, was packed on Wednesday due to the snag. So much was the crowd that even the foot-over bridge joining the two platforms on the line 3 section had no space to stand. “like other commuters I was stuck for more than one-and-a-half hour. It is unbelievable that such an incident has happened with DMRC which is known to give supreme service. Commuters have to suffer every now and then because of ineffective arrangements,” said Rahul Mishra, a businessman.
As service to Noida and Vaishali was stopped and Barakhamba was made the last station, the crowd swelled at Rajiv Chowk, the busiest station of the Delhi Metro network. As continuous announcements on the public address system started after 6.30pm about the technical snag with no assurance of an early rectification, commuters started to leave the station. This, however, led to overcrowding at the AFC gates even as hordes of commuters trying the station continued unabated.