Only for women: first two doors of Metro front car

Come March 1, male passengers of the Namma Metro must step aside and let women enter and exit through the first two doors of the front car at a few stations.

The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited is designating the first two doors of the front car as women-only on an experimental basis to ensure they are not inconvenienced, while insisting that there will not be any segregation in using the cars.

Speaking at an event where Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) handed over the first three of the 150 cars ordered by BMRCL, the metro company's managing director Mahendra Jain said, "Each metro car has four doors. We're designating the first two doors of the front car for women from March 1."

He said the entire front coach will be made women-only when the six-car trains are introduced.

Bengaluru Development Minister K J George, who flagged off a track hauling one of the three new cars, said they will be subjected to tests before commercial deployment.

"These cars have been delivered ahead of time to enable us to perform the tests," George said. "These are part of the 150 cars BMRCL has ordered from BEML, which will deliver six to nine cars a month from June and fulfil the entire order by December 2019."

The minister assured that the six-car trains will be operated in two months after BMRCL gets approval from the commissioner of railway safety (CRS).

N M Dhoke, BMRCL director for rolling stock, said the six-car trains will be subjected to 10 tests, besides service trials, after which the CRS will conduct an inspection.

The prototype testing would involve a detailed procedure after the installation of the sub-system software. The train will then carry out a trial-run over the 42-kilometre phase 1 corridor for at least 500 times before the CRS inspection.