Mumbai: In yet another disruption, the Mumbai Monorail came to a halt midway on Monday morning due to a technical glitch, raising questions about emergency preparedness after the fire brigade allegedly arrived late for the rescue operation.
About The Incident
The incident occurred around 7 am near Mukundrao Ambedkar Road junction when a train travelling from Sant Gadge Maharaj Chowk to Chembur stopped with 17 passengers onboard.
According to fire brigade officials present at the site, the monorail’s technical team had already evacuated all passengers safely by the time the rescue team arrived. The halted rake was later moved to Wadala through coupling. No injuries were reported.
Sources, however, claimed that the fire brigade reached the spot by over half an hour late. In a similar incident earlier, the Mumbai Fire Brigade rescue team reached by nearly an hour late, leaving most of the evacuation work to the monorail staff. Two monorail were stuck the then wherein hundreds of passengers were rescued.
The repeated delays by fire brigade team have raised concerns over in case of a serious accident.
During such disruptions, emergency batteries keep air-conditioning and lights running inside the monorail coaches. But prolonged evacuation efforts risk exhausting the backup system, causing passengers to face breathing discomfort and lack of ventilation, same was complained by commuters in Monday's (today) and earlier incident.
Officials said that newly procured monorail rakes equipped with advanced technology are still undergoing safety tests so to integrate with the existing system.
The monorail, spanning 17 km between Chembur and Sant Gadge Maharaj Chowk, currently runs 118 trips daily at 18-minute intervals. However, its ridership remains modest—about 16,000 on weekdays and just 10,000 on weekends.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has ordered 10 new rakes from Medha Servo Rail Pvt. Ltd. at a cost of Rs 58.9 crore each, with some already under trial runs.
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