Another Bengaluru metro Purple Line snag at Cubbon Park Metro Station causes delays

Days after a major disruption on the Purple Line, another technical snag affected services on Thursday evening when a train developed a fault at the Cubbon Park Metro Station around 7.30 p.m., resulting in delays to multiple services and causing crowding at the station.

According to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL), the disruption occurred due to a problem with the train’s door-closing mechanism. The issue led to a temporary halt in operations, affecting at least five subsequent train services and causing delays of nearly 20 minutes.

The BMRCL officials said that the train was stopped as a safety precaution after its doors failed to close properly. “As informed by the Operations Team, a temporary delay in the metro train services occurred on the Purple Line due to a technical issue wherein the doors of one train at the Cubbon Park Metro Station did not close properly. As a precautionary safety measure, commuters were safely deboarded at the station. This safety procedure took approximately 17 minutes to complete, resulting in a temporary delay to the subsequent five train services,” the officials said.

The officials said that the technical issue was rectified by the operations and maintenance teams and that normal services were fully restored across the Purple Line shortly thereafter. However, commuters caught in the disruption expressed frustration over what they described as poor communication from the BMRCL officials during the incident.

Speaking to The Hindu, Radhika B.S., a commuter, who was travelling on the affected train, said that the passengers were left confused after being suddenly asked to deboard.

“All of a sudden, the train stopped moving at the Cubbon Park station. Within five minutes, all passengers were asked to get down. We waited for nearly 15 minutes, but there was no clear information about what was happening. As the station started getting crowded, I felt it was not safe to continue waiting. I exited the station, booked an auto and went home,” she said.

Another commuter, Praveen Kumar, criticised the lack of updates from metro authorities. “We were stuck at the underground Purple Line station for around 15 minutes without any announcement or update. No officials were answering our questions regarding the cause of the delay or when services would resume. The communication from the BMRCL was pathetic. A proper safety audit should be conducted, especially regarding maintenance on the Purple Line,” he said.

The latest disruption comes just days after a major technical snag on the Purple Line caused widespread inconvenience to thousands of commuters on Tuesday, raising fresh concerns about the reliability of the city’s busiest metro corridor. Reacting to the incident, MP for Bengaluru Central P.C. Mohan said that recurring disruptions pointed to deeper systemic issues rather than isolated technical failures.

“The BMRCL must conduct a comprehensive technical audit, permanently fix the signalling system, and ensure accountability,” he said.

He further urged the BMRCL to publish detailed root-cause analyses following every major disruption along with time-bound action-taken reports.

“Commuters deserve to know what failed, why it failed, what has been fixed, and what safeguards have been put in place to prevent recurrence,” he added.