Hyderabad: Metro Rail Needs Marshals To Maintain Queue, Say Commuters

 Hyderabad: When Hyderabad Metro Rail was envisaged, it was expected to offer top-class transport solutions coupled with comfort to people in Hyderabad. However, overcrowded coaches have made passengers demand the deployment of security marshals to guide them while entering into the coaches.

No proper queue is maintained in the stations. When the trains come to a halt, boarding passengers do not let those who are exiting to de-board. This leads to jostling at stations, which mandates deployment of security. During the peak hours, the commuters find it difficult to get down or get into the trains and some of them in the process get hurt.

Karthik Kumar, a private employee, said, “I take the metro mostly from Lakdikapul. As the trains are overcrowded, nobody follows the queue. If someone wants to form a queue, he will be left behind.”

The Metro Rail operates 57 trains with each having three coaches. Each train can carry around 1,000 passengers comfortably. In all, Metro Rail can carry 57,000 passengers. However, the Metro Rail transports nearly five lakh people each day, which is 10 times more passengers.

Saritha Srivastava, a business analyst in a multinational company, “We take the metro commute only to avoid heavy traffic. However, when the government and the metro authorities fail to give a proper travel experience, people will start using their private vehicles, which will worsen the already heavy traffic on the roads. The purpose of introducing the metro rail gets lost,” she said.