Hyderabad Metro Rail: Rush leaves officials clueless

Hyderabad: Nagole was the most crowded Metro station as people from LB Nagar, Vanasthalipuram and other neighbouring places rushed to take the first ride on the Metro. 

Staff at the station was not expecting such crowds for the first service at 6 am and were caught off guard. Confusion at the ticket counter delayed the first train by 15 minutes. Prashanth Kumar, an official at Nagole station, said issuing tickets to such a big crowd took some time “and our ticket vending machine also stopped working due to the different types of currencies used.”

The lift and escalators were also down at Nagole, Uppal, and some other stations as commuters kept pressing the emergency button on the escalators, creating a technical glitch. The equipment will begin working without glitches from Thursday, station staff said.

There was a problem with the smart card too. Shankar Vemula, who was travelling from Nagole to Secunderabad said he brought a smart card for '200 but, it refused to register in the swiping machine and I was denied entry. I had to wait in the line at customer care to resolve my problem, which cost me about an hour. I was informed that as it was the first day, the equipment was not used to the overload. K. Vishwanath, who lives in Secunderabad, was another victim of the smart card glitches. “I had to buy extra tickets despite having a smart card worth '200. For my first ride from Rasoolpura to Secunderabad, the smart card was working, but in the second ride the ticket vending machines didn’t accept my smart card,” he said. 

Some procedural lapses will have to be looked into after taking feedback from commuters. After 12 noon washrooms had to be locked because they became unusable due to the large crowds.