BENGALURU: Altogether 2,934 items have been forgotten by Metro commuters inside the trains or at stations across the City. The heartening aspect is that 75 per cent of them have reached their owners intact.
Articles that go unclaimed end up serving noble causes. They are auctioned off every three months and the small sum generated goes towards the welfare of Metro staff while goods that are not sold reach charity organisations.
According to BMRCL Chief Public Relations Officer U A Vasant Rao, “From the commencement of Metro operations on October 21, 2011 to September this year, commuters have left behind 2,954 items in our trains or premises. Of these, 2273 have been reclaimed by the owners the same day.”
While mobile phones dominate the list of items in the forgotten list, cheques, passports, hand bags, spectacles, clothes and even a laptop find place, Rao said.
Kalyani Poornanadan (62) left behind her hand bag containing her passport and some cash on a Metro train while alighting at M G Road Metro station.
The homemaker then came back to the station with her husband and approached the security personnel at the station. “I was taken to meet the person in charge of the station who asked me all details and about all items in the bag. They wanted to be really sure before handing it over to me and the process took 15 minutes. But I was really impressed by this and I made it a point to tell everyone I knew about the honesty here.”
Assistant Vice President at an analytic firm, Subhedra Dutta, lost her purse containing `1,500 in cash and debit cards and her jacket. “It was a very pleasant experience when I got back my bag with everything intact.”