Complaints of men boarding ladies’ coaches on rise in Hyderabad Metro

In the month of June alone, over 700 complaints have been registered via L&T metro rail’s Whatsapp service to alert authorities on male passengers entering the female section.
Hyderabad Metro ( File |EPS)
Hyderabad Metro ( File |EPS)

HYDERABAD: In the month of June alone, over 700 complaints have been registered via L&T metro rail’s Whatsapp service to alert authorities on male passengers entering the female section. A well-placed source from L&T MRHL informed Express that on a daily basis, the Whatsapp alert service receives over 35 emergency messages. 

Passengers have also taken to Twitter to share their grievances regarding men entering demarcated women’s area due to the high inflow of passengers in the metro due to rainfall. Another woman, tweeted about an inebriated man puking inside the women’s compartment during a late night train from HiTech city towards Ameerpet. 

Sources from L&T MRHL, however, confirm that all the alerts and complaints are resolved within a few minutes. “Our success rate is 100 per cent. Our call center calls the ladies back and the feedback from the ladies is positive. We respond within two to four minutes. The moment the message comes to us, the message is relayed to the next two approaching stations. The Station Controller takes immediate action by evacuating men from the ladies coach,” the source said. 

They further added, “We had initially imposed fines on male passengers however we have started seeing a dip in these numbers. We are now counselling passengers. The trend we observe is that people are new to the system and board the ladies section by mistake. They immediately move out of the section once requested.”

When asked about plans on increasing the demarcated areas for women, NVS Reddy, MD of HMRL, said, “We do not have any immediate plan to increase the space for female passengers, but increasing reserved coaches for women will be taken into consideration after increasing frequency of trains.”

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The New Indian Express
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