The Delhi Metro’s Blue Line came to a halt for an hour and a half on Monday due to technical snag, leaving thousands of commuters stranded at Metro stations in Delhi and Noida in the evening.
According to the Delhi Metro, two loops — from Yamuna Bank to Vaishali, and Noida Electronic City to Indraprastha to Dwarka Sec-21 sections —were affected. Blue Line connects Dwarka Sector-21 in Delhi and Noida Electronic City, along with a branch line to Vaishali.
“Train services between Yamuna Bank and Indraprastha station of the Blue Line were affected from 6.35 pm to 8 pm to undertake the repair work of a broken contact wire (part of OHE) on the Uttar Pradesh line (going towards Dwarka) due to some external object (bird) hitting the pantograph of the train,” said Anuj Dayal, spokesperson of the Delhi Metro.
Following the huge crowd at the metro stations, the metro officials closed the shutters of a few stations.
The metro officials advised the commuters to take alternate metro or any other mode of transportation to reach their destination.
Most of the commuters, during peak rush hours, however, stayed at the station waiting for authorities to give any update regarding the metro service.
According to Dayal, a shuttle train service was made available to passengers between Indraprastha and Yamuna Bank stations.
Ranjan Dimri, a daily commuter, said that he was stuck at Sector-15 metro station for 45 minutes, as the officials closed the entry at the station citing technical snag.
“I was told by officials to go to Mayur Vihar metro station and take the pink line from there,” said Dimri, a resident of Model Town area.
Rahul Dutta, whose office is near Sector-15 metro station in Noida said that after standing for at least an hour, we decided to go to the Botanical Garden and take the Magenta line metro to Hauz Khas.
“The metro officials were not sure when the service will resume,” he said.
Syed Raza Nawab, another daily commuter said that following the no metro service on Blue Lines people have queued up to take the Magenta Line at Botanical Garden in Noida.
“There are kilometers long queues of people to take the metro and metro on the magenta line is also taking time to come. It is also coming after an interval of 15 minutes which has led to long queues here,” said Nawab.
Another commuter, Vikas Kumar, who was standing in a queue at Sector-61 metro station said that he was standing in the queue for the last one hour and to reach Uttam Nagar he had no other option than the Blue line metro.
“I will wait for the metro services to resume. I cannot afford a taxi and public buses may take a longtime to reach there. So, it’s better, I should wait here,” said Kumar.