Mumbai: Bird drops trouble on Metro line

Commuters lose their cool after being stranded at Marol Metro station on Wednesday. Pic/Sonu Kanojia

Services on the Andheri-Ghatkopar Mumbai Metro Blue Line 1 were disrupted for 45 minutes on Wednesday evening after a bird dropped a stray wire on overhead wiring, which impacted the electrical converter unit. The disruption, which occurred less than ten days after chaos ensued following the cancellation of a service on the line, left commuters fuming.

The previous disruption occurred on April 18, after a tarpaulin fell from an under-construction building on an overhead wire near the Azad Nagar Metro station, bringing Blue Line services to a halt from 6.16 pm to 6.30 pm. Due to the disruption, DN Nagar station witnessed massive crowding and commuters slammed the Metro authorities for allowing the situation to get out of hand.

A Metro Blue Line station witnesses crowding after services are disrupted on the evening of April 18

On Wednesday, many commuters were frustrated after Mumbai Metro teams shut down the main entrances of stations to prevent crowding. "We are not allowed to go inside Ghatkopar Metro station. The security guards are saying there is a technical issue. We have been waiting for 30 minutes. They are not even opening the gates," a commuter, Mumtaz Baloch, said.

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Another commuter, Christopher D'Mello, stated, "We have halted at Asalpha station because there is a technical fault with the Metro. But the staff at the station is pathetic and has no sense of how to handle things. Rather, they are creating more chaos and treating passengers rudely."

A spokesperson confirmed the disruption and said Mumbai Metro One services were disrupted due to a fault in the electrical converter unit of a train which was evacuated at Asalpha station around 4.45 pm.

"The train was withdrawn from service, and normal services resumed at 5.30 pm. The electrical converter unit developed a fault due to an external wire dropped by a bird," the spokesperson said.

Developer booked over tarpaulin incident

A developer has been booked in connection with the April 18 incident. The complainant, Shamrao Bandgar, 51, a security officer, had received a call from another officer, Dipak Yadav, who informed him that the tarpaulin had fallen onto overhead wires around 300 metres from the Azad Nagar Metro station last Tuesday. Bandgar immediately informed power supply traction team member Nitin Wankhede and his staff about the matter. The sheet was 18 feet long and 12 feet wide. A police officer told mid-day, "We have booked the developer for not fixing the tarpaulin properly due to which it fell on the Metro line."

Input by Shirish Vaktania