Delhi Metro commuters, largely office-goers, on Thursday faced hardship, as services on its Blue Line were delayed for over two hours due to a technical snag.
Blue Line connects Dwarka Sector-21 in Delhi and Noida Electronic City, along with a branch line to Vaishali.
This is the second time this week when the entire Blue Line has been impacted by a glitch.
On June 6, a large number of commuters on the Blue Line had faced hardship as services across the corridor were impacted for nearly an hour and a half due to a technical snag caused by a bird hit.
On Thursday again, the DMRC tweeted around 7:25 AM to alert commuters.
"Blue Line Update Delay in services between Dwarka Sector 21 and Noida Electronic City/Vaishali. Normal service on all other lines," it tweeted.
The normal services could only be resumed after over two hours on the corridor.
The DMRC again tweeted at 9:43 AM that "normal services have resumed".
In between, the Delhi Metro had updated on its Twitter handle the cause of the snag.
"There has been damage to the Over Head Electrification wire due to flash over by an external object between Yamuna Bank and Indraprastha. Repair work is being done on a war footing. Update on restoration shall be provided soon. The inconvenience is regretted," it said.
Being the morning hour, many of these commuters were office-goers or businessmen who were on way to Connaught Place or other important commercial hubs located near the Blue Line network.
Several of them took to Twitter to share about the hardships faced and some even tagged Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and sought effective redressal of such issues.
"Another day but the same news... don't tell us about the hindrance. Inform this to our offices that won't understand the issues we're facing due to the repeated delayed service of blue line," wrote a commuter and Twitter user @_monukumar.
Another commuter, @vikek2020 said: "@Secretary_MoHUA @HardeepSPuri @ArvindKejriwal please take suitable action. People are still recovering from the pandemic and such situations decrease the productivity of office goers".
Other commuters asked why was the issue getting repeated on the Blue Line in just a matter of few days.
"What is the exact issue? And why can't it be resolved despite repetitive occurence?," said @MuskanBhatia18.
Some even shared that they were stuck on the metro line, so they would miss interview opportunities.
"Had interview today at 10:00 am in Noida, just got a bus from rajeev chowk that too for anand vihar. Will not be able to make it to the interview," wrote @mishrarohit1820. Later in the day, the DMRC issued a statement on the incident, saying "train services between Yamuna Bank and Indraprastha stations of the Blue Line were affected from 6:43 AM to 9:45 AM today to undertake the repair work of a broken catenary wire on the Up Line which goes towards Dwarka".
The maintenance team reported that some broken charger cable and other wire was found at the site which may have been dropped by a carrier bird hitting the OHE and damaging the catenary wire, it said.
During this period, train services were temporarily not available between Indraprastha and Yamuna Bank stations due to the absence of OHE resulting from the breakdown of catenary wire, officials said.
"Single-line train service was provided between Yamuna Bank station and Barakhamba Road metro station through Down line as the restoration work was in progress on affected section of Up line to decongest the passenger rush. Alternate shuttle train service was also provided for commuting of passengers between Indraprastha and Yamuna Bank stations during the affected period," the statement said.
Train services were effectively available on the rest of the sections of Blue Line during this period in two loops i.e., from Yamuna Bank to Vaishali/Noida Electronic City and Indraprastha to Dwarka Sec-21 sections, it said. Also, on Thursday, there was a brief delay in services between Rithala and Kashmere Gate stations of the Red Line on the evening.
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