RailEnquiry

GURGAON: On a weekday morning, one can witness serpentine queues outside Metro stations in the city, especially at the HUDA City Center station.Commuters complain that they have to stand in queue for around 30 minutes to enter the station.While the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) claims that this is due to the security arrangements ahead of Independence Day, the CISF personnel at the stations say that ridership has increased manifold in the past few months and Metro authorities should increase the doorframe metal detectors to reduce the rush outside the station."It is an everyday affair to wait outside in long queues just to enter the station and again it's a battle to find a place to stand inside the train. The Metro authorities don't seem to be bothered about this. Sometimes there are people facing emergency situation and it's unfair on the part of Metro officials to make them stand like this for 30-40 minutes. Immediate steps should be taken to resolve the situation," said Jagriti Arora, a daily commuter.The DMRC authorities claim that the situation would improve to a large extent after August 15. "The rush and increased waiting period is mainly due to the Independence Day. Since the CISF personnel are carrying out manual frisking of all the commuters, the lines are getting extended," said a senior official.During normal times, the security guards carryout two types of frisking - profile and manual. The maual frisking takes much longer time than the other. "We have plans to increase the doorframe metal detectors at the HUDA City Center and Sikanderpur Metro stations, we have already placed orders for them and we hope to have them soon. We are sure that these measures would be sufficient for the increasing demand. Apart from this, we will also increase the number of scanning machines," added the DMRC official.

The CISF guards at the HUDA City Center metro station claim that this rush has got nothing to do with the slow pace of checking. "For the past couple of months, the number of commuters has increased substantially and during peak hours there is a big queue outside the station," said one of them.