The hop-on-hop-off to Qutab

For most people,it was a perfect excuse to spend the day outside,minus the heat. The first commercial Metro run between Qutab Minar station and HUDA City Centre in Gurgaon on Monday saw hundreds of families...

For most people,it was a perfect excuse to spend the day outside,minus the heat. The first commercial Metro run between Qutab Minar station and HUDA City Centre in Gurgaon on Monday saw hundreds of families,some of them with toddlers in tow,and college students making a beeline for a joyride. It helped that the elevated Metro line was giving a never-before view of the Qutab Minar,the adjoining greenery and the highrises of Millennium City.

Till 8 pm on Day 1,the ten stations of this section had grossed over Rs 2.45 lakh from sale of tokens and smart cards and registered a footfall of over 30,000. Not all of them were first-time travellers. Some like 12-year-old Hari Kumar took the trip four times. The boy from Mehrauli bought a Metro card worth Rs 150 and kept moving between the two states,his face firmly pressed against one of the windows. The others in his compartment were equally eager to see the malls that whizzed by.

For Saroj Khanna,her husband and three daughters,it was a perfect family outing. We are from Gurgaon and we came to Qutab Minar in the morning. We have visited the monument and now we are going back. My husband especially took the day off to come and take this ride with us, she said.

Mandeep and friend Harmeet spent most of Monday travelling between the malls along MG Road. We also had some work to do. This Metro is very convenient. I came from Sheikh Sarai on a bike and hopped into the Metro along with friends, said Mandeep.

While the morning trips were good,towards evening,the Metro suffered a few glitches. Maya Bhagat and her daughter Diya,Gurgaon residents who normally travel by car,had to regret their decision to take the Metro as the train did not arrive for 20 minutes at the MG Road station. The DMRC had earlier said that the frequency of the train will be 12 minutes. The attendants have not been trained well. They cant give information on the fares and dont know much about where a particular exit will lead to, said Maya. The extreme heat added to the frustration.

But Stolen cables affect services
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has attributed the delays and disruptions on the first day of the Qutab Minar-Huda City Centre service to the theft of signalling cable between two stations. A DMRC spokesperson said the cable,known as the S-bond,used for providing signals to the trains was stolen from near Qutab Minar station on Monday morning. As a result,the track circuits stopped working,severely affecting operations during the day. The stolen cable was laid between Sultanpur and Qutab Minar stations.

The trains were running on manual mode from Sultanpur to Qutab Minar stations when the services began at 8 am,DMRC sources said. Train services were affected between the stations. The actual travelling time from Qutab Minar to Gurgaon is 27 minutes,but since the trains were run on manual mode between Sultanpur and Qutab Minar,todays journey took 30-32 minutes, the source said. The cables are being relaid and normal operations are expected to commence on Tuesday. A police complaint has been lodged.

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