Delhi Metro’s blue line hit for 2 hours after technical glitch

New Delhi: Services on the Delhi Metro’s Blue Line were disrupted on Sunday morning due to a technical snag that restricted the trains’ speed. “There was a little delay in services on the Line-3 between 9.15 to 11.15am due to track circuit drop, a signalling issue that resulted due to minor rail fracture between Indraprastha and Yamuna Bank stations on the line from Noida/Vaishali towards Dwarka,” a DMRC official said. This is not the first occasion when passengers had to suffer due to technical snag. Frequent glitches, especially on the Blue Line route, have become a norm of sorts in the past few months.

“To fix the problem, maintenance staff were given access to the track twice, which led to minor delays. After temporary repair, services on the Line 3 were restored,” the official said. He added the detailed repair work will be undertaken during night hours.

On June 28, a portion of overhead wire snapped between Subhash Nagar and Tilak Nagar stations, severely disrupting services for around three hours, which spilled on to the evening peak period, causing inconvenience to thousands of commuters.  

On April 4, thousands of passengers faced a harrowing time in the Metro during peak morning hours after a technical glitch halted operations on two of its busiest lines. Trains were running slow on the Dwarka Sector 21-Vaishali corridor (Line 3) as well as the Central Secretariat-Badarpur corridor (Line 6), leaving scores of office-goers anxious. The DMRC has claimed it is keeping up with its reputation being punctual. “Barring minor or occasional delays, our trains are always on time. And we deal with the problems on a war footing,” said the official.

In 2014, Delhi Metro MD Mangu Singh asked officials to conduct an audit of electrical-related failures on the line so that the pattern of the failures could be analysed and technical methods can be sought to minimise the occurrence of such incidents.