Thousands of commuters on the busy Purple Line of Namma Metro in Bengaluru faced inconvenience for a few hours on Tuesday morning after the movement of trains was disrupted owing to a technical snag.
Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) fixed the problem around 9.20 a.m., and train services were restored at 9.22 a.m.
According to BMRCL, there was a communication problem in the signalling system between Baiyappanahalli and Garudacharpalya. The snag resulted in slow movement of trains between these stations.
Large crowds were seen waiting for trains at several stations. To ease the passenger traffic, BMRCL ran three short-loop trains between Majestic and Baiyappanahalli, said an official. According to sources in BMRCL, the problem was reported post 6 a.m. and persisted till 9.20 a.m.
BMRCL has been facing flak over multiple disruptions in a month from commuters. Many took to X (formerly Twitter) to express anger over the frequent disruption of services and a lack of prior information to commuters.
Yogesh Naik said: “Huge letdown by Namma Metro. And not even a single security guard had a clue. There was no crowd control. There is absolutely no space to stand at the platform in Majestic station.”
Another user said: “CM Siddaramaiah, instead of Skydeck, in the budget, you should have proposed some plan to manage crowd at the metro station.”
Bengaluru South MP, Tejasvi Surya, on platform X (formerly Twitter) said: “Many of my constituents have sent me messages regarding excruciating delays in Purple Line operations today morning. I understand BMRCL has cited technical snags as the reason. While reasons may be genuine, users fail to understand just how many times Metro operations are impacted every month.”
