Mumbai : Larsen & Toubro, which built it, refers to it as a modern urban transport system. The MMRDA calls it a system to support public rapid transportation system. But when the monorail was non-functional for 10 hours between Sunday and Monday, no one deemed it fit to inform the public. In fact, the news was kept under wraps.
The monorail services were shut from 4:23 pm on Sunday to 11:30 am the following day due to power failure in one of the underground Traction sub-stations (TSS) at Fertilizer township. According to sources, the cable from the sub-station was burnt and lead to malfunctioning of the insulator attached to the guideway rail.
The attempts of officials from L&T as well as Scomi, the company which operates the monorail, to supply power from the TSS at Wadala and Mysore Colony failed. The rakes were stuck at the stations as the TSS was unable to take load of the remaining route due to the burning of the insulator.A rescue train had to be bought in and tow the rakes back.
However, no official notification was issued either by the administrator MMRDA or its operational partner Scomi, informing the public about the failure and the ensuing disruption.
The services were restored only at 11.30 am on Monday, highlighting the poor accountability of the organization towards its users. When contacted on Wednesday, Dilip Kawathkar, Joint project director of MMRDA, said, “We did not issue any official handout to the press or the public. The operations partner Scomi Engineering Bhd should be asked about it.”
“It is clear that the organization wants to hide information to avoid any criticism,’’ said Jeetendra Gupta of the Citizens Transport Forum. He added that the Chief Minister must make it mandatory for all transport organizations to inform the disaster cell which can further inform the public. “There has to be some accountability on the part of the organizations in an era when information can be spread at the click of a button,” he said.
Rishi Aggarwal, a research fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, said, “It is not a problem which was solved in an hour or so. The fact that it lasted for nearly 10 hours and no one was informed is shocking. They should have at least attempted to put it up on the social networking sites which go viral within seconds. The railways inform the media about any small incident that happens and it is disseminated easily.”
Sudhir Badami, a member of Research and MIS Committee of Unified Mumbai Metropolitan Transport Authority, said, “It is very strange that people were not informed about it. There seems to be a lack of coordination on the part of the two agencies that run the monorail services in the city.”
(With inputs from Iram Siddique)
Anil Singh
