Title - Commuters suffer as repair work on Blue Line slows Metro down

One lakh thirty thousands daily passengers travelling to and from Delhi and Noida, on the Noida line of Delhi Metro on Wednesday suffered as metro speeds went painfully slow at all six Noida metro stations, commuters said.Waiting time for metro went up to 15-20 minutes against the earlier 5 minutes, leading to heavy rush of passengers at stations, officials said.Delhi metro rail corporation (DMRC) said metro speed has gone down from 30 km per hour to 12-13 km per hour since it had started repair work in the cantilever arm supporting platform number one at Noida's City Center metro station, the last metro station on the Noida-Dwarka line.Metro passengers travelling on Noida-Dwarka route will have to suffer for three more weeks because of the ongoing repair work."Earlier, I used to wait for five minutes to catch a metro from Noida Sector 15 metro station. But now after this repair work, it takes 15 minutes to board metro to my college in Delhi's Patel Nagar. On Wednesday, it was more painful to travel and catch a metro as it took 20 minutes to board a metro from Patel Nagar to Noida. The whole route has got affected for past several days," said Mona Maurya, 25, a research scholar at a Delhi college at Patel Nagar.

According to DMRC, on an average about 2 lakh daily passengers travel from Noida on Noida-Dwarka route, but on Wednesday only 1,30,000 passengers travelled because of overcrowded Noida metro stations that put off many passengers.

Rumours are, City Center metro station will have to be closed for repair work, but DMRC denied it.

"Metro operations are completely safe and level of the platform is constantly monitored at all times. This is a precautionary and preemptive exercise being carried out for end portion of the platform at Noida City Centre Metro Station. The repair work is likely to be completed in 3 weeks since repair work can be carried out in traffic block hours in the night time only," said Anuj Dyal DMRC spokesperson. 

"Boarding a metro has become painful since this repair work has begun. Because one platform at City center is not being used rush create problems for passengers," said Gaurav Trivedi a commuter.

The Noida authority on Wednesday told that way back in 2008-9, the design of cantilever of Noida metro stations including of City Center had been approved after a controversy pertaining to its strength.