Metro snag leaves thousands stranded in Gurugram, Delhi

Sumedha Sharma
Tribune News Service
Gurugram, May 21

Services on Delhi Metro’s Yellow Line remained disrupted for several hours today due to some technical snag, leaving thousands of commuters, headed from Gurugram to Delhi, stranded at the Sultanpur station.

Though the services were reportedly hit around 9.32 am due to the snapping of an overhead power cable at the Sultanpur station, it took over two hours for the DMRC to tweet about the snag.

The passengers were asked to reach the Qutub Minar station and board further trains. Due to the non-availability of feeder buses, people either had to walk for five km or shell out Rs 200 per person to reach Qutub Minar.

There was chaos at the Qutub Minar station too. Hundreds of passengers who had left in HUDA metro around 9 am had been waiting there for the train for about three hours. A large number of them stood alongside the road, waiting for help.

After 12 noon, police and CRPF personnel stepped in, trying to manage the situation. As and when they could manage an auto-rickshaw, they would stuff four-five passengers into that with directions to the driver to drop them at the next metro station. Taking advantage of the situation, auto-rickshaw drivers charged anything between Rs 200 and Rs 350 from every passenger.

Meanwhile, several stranded commuters took to Twitter to express their anguish. Many of them were seen shooting videos of the prevailing situation.

Around 1.45 pm, the DMRC tweeted that the services had resumed. However, it took another one hour for the chaos to end. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted that he had asked the Transport Minister to look into the matter and ask the DMRC to fix responsibility for the incident.