BENGALURU: The social media accounts of Namma Metro, usually considered one of the active ones on microblogging site Twitter, has been dark for the past nine days. While one of the accounts, that of the managing director, has not seen a tweet since 2016, the account of the chief public relations officer (@cpronammametro), usually an active one, was deactivated for a while, and only went live again on Friday evening.
On November 1, there was a change in the senior management at the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) with the spokesperson resigning and a new one being appointed. A tweet by the outgoing spokesperson and chief public relations officer, UA Vasanth Rao, was the last one to show on the account, which remained live only for a few days more. Even on Friday afternoon, the account @cpronammametro did not exist on Twitter.
“The account used to tweet pictures and updates on the Metro as well as flag certain complaints for action. In this day and age, it is not possible to even fathom that a company that has built an account would want to let it go so easily,” said Papiya Das, a social media manager. The reason for the deactivation, while not confirmed by BMRCL, was most likely because of the change of guard recently. Before going live again, CE had contacted the new BMRCL spokesperson, who assured us that the account would be active again.
Meanwhile, Twitterati continued to tag the handle, unaware that it was not active. “Gave `100 for `30 trip on @cpronammametro at Trinity. Staff rudely says get change.....”, an angry user tweeted to the handle. Others tweeted requesting skywalks or for the Metro to be extended to their areas, and got no reply.
The other Twitter handle @NammaMetro, has been defunct for long. While the managing director’s Twitter account had last sent out a tweet on June 1, 2016, the other handle had last tweeted back in 2014. On other sites like Facebook, the BMRCL does not have a presence as it has concentrated mostly on Twitter to reach out to commuters.