BENGALURU:
Namma Metro services were disrupted for 39 minutes on Monday morning after a
technical glitch hit the
Byappanahalli-Mysuru Road Purple Line, inconveniencing commuters, particularly office-goers.
A BMRCL statement said a signalling failure occurred at the entry point of Byappanahalli station at 10.18am because of which trains couldn’t arrive or depart till the system was manually reset and restored by 10.57am. Six round trips from Byappanahalli were cancelled due to the signalling failure, said BMRCL managing director Mahendra Jain in a statement.
The Metro staffers had to evacuate 158 passengers from one train through a walkway to the platform at 10.35am after it was stranded about 200m from the station. Following this, three trains heading to Byappanahalli were terminated — one at SV Road and two at Indiranagar stations.
Many stations, including the Majestic interchange, MG Road and Indiranagar stations, saw a massive crowd for over an hour and several services were delayed because of the technical snag.
“There was a temporary problem at Byappanahalli crossover where the trains turn back. As a result, some trains had to turn back at Indiranagar and some trains detained a little longer at various stations. The problem was fixed and services were back to normal by around 11am. No train were stuck midway in a tunnel as power supply was not affected,” said Jain.
Many stranded passengers took to social media to vent their anger. Raviprajna, a commuter, tweeted, “Namma Metro staff collects Metro fare knowingly even when train was stopped (for) more than 45 minutes due to a technical issue causing inconvenience to many.”
Another commuter, Mohan Krishnappa, tweeted, “Namma Metro Kudos 2u. What punctuality (sic); other countries should learn from u. Halted for 30mins at Vidhana Soudha stn; wasted precious time with money that too in peak time; severe(ly) affecting many commuters. V would have opted (for) BMTC for better punctuality (sic).”
However, BMRCL stated that 16 tokens — five at Byappanahalli, five at Indiranagar and six at Mysuru Road stations — for a value of Rs 340 were refunded during the period.
BMRCL also operated three short loops from Indiranagar to Mysuru Road and Majestic interchange to clear the rush. “Signal failure is being investigated thoroughly,” the statement added.
