New Delhi

Metro slow when it comes to maintenance

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

The reason why DMRC has failed to extend operational timings past the 10 p.m. deadline

NEW DELHI: Though it is one of the youngest metro railway systems in the world, the Delhi Metro despite all its top-notch technology still needs the maximum maintenance time to stay running fit. And this is why in spite of a large number of Delhiites demanding that Metro operations be extended up to late at night, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has not been too keen to stretch the 10 p.m. deadline.

Seven-hours for unkeep

The need to devote around seven hours for maintenance is also depriving the Delhi Metro of much needed revenue.

While upon completion of Phase I of the Delhi Metro project the ridership was expected to be around 15 lakhs, it now seems that at best the figure would reach around 5 lakhs once the entire Phase I becomes operational in March 2006.

According to Delhi Transport Minister Haroon Yusuf, a number of people have approached him asking for an extension of the Metro timings.

While the matter of extending the timings had been raised at a meeting earlier, he said, nothing had come of it. But now that Phase I is nearing completion and the number of people desiring extended Metro operations has grown, the Minister said he would convene another meeting on the subject.

According to senior DMRC officials, increasing the frequency is "technically possible'' but it is not on the cards in the near future. As the trains start operating from 6 a.m. and the last train service operates at 10 p.m., the service actually ends only about half an hour later. And then, they say, additional trains are run up to 11 p.m. to check the tracks and system for faults.

During night, the maintenance and cleaning of the trains is done. The maintenance assumes significance since the trains run around 400 to 500 kilometres per day.

As such the maintenance continues till 5 a.m. after which one hour is given for checking and re-checking of systems of trains before they resume normal operations.

But while other countries also carry out similar checks, cleaning and maintenance operations, the time they consume is much less.

Fear of getting stranded

So while, many Delhiites do not avail of the Metro service and use their private modes of transport as they work late and fear that they would be left stranded due to the early closure of the system, Metro users the world over enjoy late operations of the system.

In London, which is the oldest Metro system in the world, the operations normally continue till past midnight and on some sections even up to 1 a.m.. This when the grand old system should be in need for more maintenance.

The Tokyo Metro system, which has 13 lines in all, also operates from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. And the Paris Metro system, which has 14 lines traversing 212 km, does even better since it starts operating as early as 5-30 a.m. and runs till 1 in the night.

Even the "younger'' Metro systems like Shanghai (5-20 a.m. to 11-30 a.m.) score over Delhi Metro on this count. So, according to many Metro passengers, this probably is one area where the Delhi Metro really needs to work on.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu