Mumbai Metro Woes

vivek.krishnan

vivek.krishnan

BLR~ZRS-TX-1-MX
Skilled
This is literally the most stupid thing I have ever seen from the Railway officials. Someone needs to screw their heads on straight.

If you want to use the FoB @ Ghatkopar station, you are expected to buy a ticket now. The Railway official has said that because of the Metro, the Railway passengers are inconvenienced. How very clever of understanding that at major junctions, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!

Previously, I have travelled several times on the same route, and never faced any ticket issues as the bridge was open for all. Also, apart from peak hours, the bridge is sparsely populated, unlike Dadar or CST/Churchgate. So, this argument does not hold true, IMO.

Link : http://www.mid-day.com/articles/taking-the-mumbai-metro-pay-up-for-using-rail-fob/15396190

Add to this, it seems that the Mumbai Metro is using Windows XP (Embeded maybe) and Kaspersky AV. Talk about using soon to be EOL stuff!

I did not take photos, but at the bottom, it says "C:\Document and Sett" partially, which makes it clear what is running, and today the Kaspersky AV scan completed notification popped up at WEH station :p
 
avi said:
lets install a keylogger, what say? :p
Click to expand...


Why try the same old (boring) feat again? Take over the train itself. :troll:


Was reading an article a few days back regarding the difference in fare vis a vis Delhi vs Mumbai metro.. One couldnt have hoped for good pricing after the latter went into private hands.
 
Few days back while going to versova from ghatkopar mild raining started.The guards covered the baggage check machine.And all were allowed to cross the security cordon without any check.Even the person checking with machine was happy to do the same with no check.I guess soon or later one will surely see some big incident waiting to happen.

Regarding railway they just trying to earn some extra buck trying to fool people.Surely one will see it backfire as no one interested and if it really needs ticket they should have place counters and notice entering this area without tickets is prohbited .If i am caught i will surely create a scene and will pay the fine but asking the officer first to collect fine from atleast 25 persons and i am ready to wait till day end unless he do the same.And ofcourse i wont allow those 25 people to pay fine showing how callous railways are to earn extra buck.Unless they are harassed railway doesn't work i know Mumbai railway culture.First there are no counters at foot over bridge at first place to get ticket or coupons punch.Also half their coupon punching machine doesn't work.
 
@MAGNeT I too have the same apprehensions - does the Metro have security. Whenever I have seen the baggage security chaps, they are talking amongst themselves, NOT, repeat NOT looking at the screen, OR are looking at it casually and then going back to gossiping. I fear this is a disaster waiting to happen.

As for the normal frisking - nada. They aint doing anything. On the contrary, the monorail had a better way of doing it, airport CISF style. Took more time, but they were really doing security checks.

As for the ticket thingy, lets wait and watch. They dont have a connection to the skywalk either (another big mega ****up), which means this is the best way to get across the railway tracks.

Just hope someone from the Mumbai Metro is reading this thread.
 
Have a couple of friends working with Mumbai Metro since the past three years now. Will pass on this link to them and seek their views.

However, I must add that the last time I spoke to one of those friends (couple of days after Metro opening), he was lamenting on the inadequacy of the security arrangements.
 
Ok, having been out of town for the past few days, today travelled on the Metro - they did not bother to do a scan of my bag. That, and he fact that they have started issuing paper tickets (yeah :facepalm:) which negate the meaning of the gates, and now a person will have to be deputed to check tickets

On another note, yesterday, while taking the Metro from Andheri station, entered the platform, on which the metro is towards Versova only (was in a hurry and did not check which side of the platform I had entered). The x ray machine had a box on it, and he was not bothering to do manual checks - neither bag nor body checks. Since I was returning from Gujrat, he stopped me, opened one of the two bags I was carrying, and just saw the top, saw loads of clothes, and waved me through. Did not check the other bag, nor of the other passengers.

In short, Metro security is going bad to worse.
 
I really suggest you put this on their FB page. You see in India, it is always after something happens, things may be tightened and that too only a bit.
 
raksrules said:
I really suggest you put this on their FB page. You see in India, it is always after something happens, things may be tightened and that too only a bit.
Click to expand...

From the way I see it, they would either block me or stop me from posting or something else. Instead, it would be better if @eternoMind could email the CEO of the Metro about this page and try to rectify the issues.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
From the way I see it, they would either block me or stop me from posting or something else. Instead, it would be better if @eternoMind could email the CEO of the Metro about this page and try to rectify the issues.
Click to expand...

Have already forwarded this link to my friends. Hoping to hear from them soon.
I will ask them for email IDs of higher-ups, i.e. if you'd like to shoot an email yourself.
 
vivek.krishnan said:
Sure. The higher up the person, the better. Maybe this will knock some sense into them.
Click to expand...

So spoke in person to the said friend when he had come down on leave for a few days.

Here's the deal according to him; they (he and his fellow colleagues including the train pilots) had raised this security issue internally even before the operations began. Although the demand was of a CISF-like force, it apparently was turned down/ignored without any reasons being provided. It is important to note here that Mumbai Metro PPP consists of three entities, Reliance Infra, MMRDA, and a French company called Veolia. My friends are on the payroll of Veolia, which has been hired by Reliance Infra to build, operate and maintain the MM. Veolia has been given a freehand in choosing every level of staff (including housekeeping) except those belonging to security section, which is anyways a state responsibility. This security issue, very low fares, and some others issues are a bone of contention between Reliance and Veolia as of now. In other words, those running and maintaining the metro are almost toothless as far as ensuring better security is concerned. In fact, in the initial days after the metro started, my friend often had to resort to call local police to manage the crowds.

So the gist of the story is that a responsibility as serious as the metro's security is being shirked at some level; a sad state of affairs indeed :(!
 
I travel by metro for all days except for Sunday. The security has certainly gone down and these guys have to compromise on it for many reasons. Reasons r mentioned in above posts. But from what I observe is that MM is still better when u compare it to the city's other transport mediums. I found better and we'll behaved staff, most of the times the staff is informed about happenings and is always polite seeking cooperation. What one also needs to understand is the crowd that gets in at one go. In any train that halts at ghatkopar there is huge crowd which wants to board metro ASAP. This creates ruckus at checking points and they don't even get breathing time. There r ample amount of staff visible and actively working in making ppl understand the process. But the rush that comes in one go is simply not possible to handle. It is also in hands of ppl travelling to cooperate. Even today I saw a mad rush of close to 300ppl trying to get through the 5 checking points in gtkpr at one go. Mumbai ppl r good, I feel better than any other metro in this country. Having said that I also feel MM needs to improvise on the entry and exit point handling by bringing smart techniques on handling entry exit traffic. And security of checking, the bigger threat to metro imo is not from inside the train. It's from the outside.
 
Back
Top