With new bus fares touching Metro rates, commuters take the faster option

With the hike in bus fares and its subsequent effect on Metro — overcrowding and delay — the city’s commuters had a tough time on Thursday.

Several Metro trains were delayed leading to heavy rush at stations. The lines concerned were the Yellow Line (Jahangirpuri-Central Secretariat) and Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 9-Yamuna Bank). The delay began in the morning and by afternoon, the situation had worsened, leading to overcrowding at several stations.

The stations of Rajiv Chowk, New Delhi, Chawri Bazaar and Chandni Chowk were choc-a-bloc and commuters could barely board trains or alight from them.

There were also complaints that the trains ran at a very slow speed and kept stopping at intervals.

“The train I boarded at Rajiv Chowk stood at the platform for over 15 minutes and even after it started running, it kept stopping every now and then,” said Deepa Saxena, a second-year student of Delhi University. “Announcements were made that a train ahead of ours had a technical problem, so our train had to be delayed.”

The crowd made the condition inside the train suffocating. “Repeated announcements were made apologising for the delay due to the slow speed of our train,” he added.

Pankaj Singh, a sales executive working in Chawri Bazaar, said: “I was delayed by over half an hour on my way to my office today. First, I missed a train at Rajiv Chowk as there was heavy rush and I could not even get into the train. Then the train I boarded was running at a very slow speed and kept stopping.”

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