As crowds swelled, metro ran out of tokens; fares collected at exits

It was not just the Vidhana Soudha that was teeming with people on Wednesday evening, but even the metro station near it. There was such a heavy rush at the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Metro station after the swearing-in ceremony that at one point, metro staff ran out of tokens. Hard-pressed to control the swelling crowd of travellers, the BMRCL took the decision to allow them to travel from the station without tickets. But, fares were collected at the exit points.

“With hundreds of people getting inside the metro station, it became tough for us to control the crowd. Tokens got exhausted. Most of the people were travelling to Majestic and Mysuru Road,” said a metro staff.

The BMRCL also deployed more staff on the platforms to guide the passengers. Trains were seen leaving from the station jam-packed.

Four additional trains

The BMRCL operated four additional trains on the purple line to clear the rush. Usually 22 trains are operated on the line and the number was increased to 26. The frequency of the trains was increased after 12.30 p.m to facilitate people to reach the Vidhana Soudha. Once the swearing-in ceremony ended, trains were running with frequency of less than three minutes.

Namma Metro runs out of tokens on swearing-in day, issues paper tickets.  

With the tokens getting exhausted, the staff at the ticketing counter started issuing paper tickets to some of the passengers. Hunumantha, a native of Gadag, said, “I wanted to see Kumaraswamy taking oath as Chief Minister so I came here. After the ceremony, I wanted to travel to Banashankari, so decided to use the train. I paid ₹30 and they gave me a paper ticket instead of the token.”

“The decision was taken to allow the passengers without ticket at the entry to help passengers reach their destinations without wasting time in long queues. Fare amounts were collect at the exit points. In addition to increasing the frequency, we also operated loop trains to clear the rush at this particular station,” said MD of BMRCL Mahendra Jain.