BENGALURU: The Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Metro Station at Majestic was jam-packed with commuters on Monday morning as metro trains operated at an interval of 10 minutes instead of the regular services at a 3-5 minutes frequency during peak hours.
People were seen queueing up till the first floor of the station, while the train stood at the underground station, even at 8.50 am.
The situation started to get worse from 9 am and continued till noon, when train frequency started to improve.
Commuters blamed the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) for this. They said while BMRCL was keen on hiking the fares, it has been least bothered about the commuters and hence assumed that there will less crowd on April 14, due to government holiday on account of Ambedkar Jayanthi. However, many private organisations and tech firms had a regular working day.
Peak hours for the BMRCL are from 8 am till 12 pm and from 4 pm to 9 pm on weekdays, while the rest of the time is considered to be off-peak hours where Metro frequency is once in 8-10 minutes.
Regular commuters said that the trains are operated every 3-5 minutes during peak hours, and on Monday, there was one train every 10 minutes from Majestic leading to the chaos at the station.
They complained that as the crowd kept swelling at the Majestic stations and commuters pushing each other to get inside the rail, the limited staff at the station did nothing.
Krishna, a regular commuter, took to social media and stated, “BMRCL thinks everyone has a holiday, running trains at 10-minute frequency at rush hour, Majestic will have a stampede one of these days and only BMRCL will be to blame. No queue, no rules, it is a free for all today (sic)”.
Another commuter at the station vented his ire against BMRCL and said that everyone cannot have the luxury of sitting at home on government holidays. They told BMRCL will be responsible if there are any mismanagement.
Not only Kempegowda Station but commuters from other stations like Magadi Road, Vijaynagar and others also complained about station to be overcrowded, and they were not able to board the train as they were running fully-packed.
“The mismanagement at Majestic Metro Station this morning is unacceptable. Reducing train frequency to 10 minutes during peak hours, assuming everyone has a holiday, created absolute chaos. BMRCL must plan better in such cases and restore normal frequency immediately," said Bangalore Central MP PC Mohan.
BMRCL added additional trains after overcrowding and as the day progressed.
The BMRCL spokesperson issued a statement that read: "Following the crowd build-up at Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Station (Majestic), on account of the general holiday, BMRCL operationalised four additional trains from Byapahanalli to Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Station (Majestic) to enhance public convenience. Additionally, one train was short-terminated at Majestic and returned to ITPL. With this, a total of 7 fresh trips originating from Majestic, Garudacharpalya and Whitefield were operated." The release added, the trains on Monday evening from ITPL were also made operational at 5 minutes headway.