delhi metro havoc by drivers

Posted on January 8, 2012. Comments(11)     Status: RTI Leaks
Public Information Officer Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Metro Bhawan, Fire Brigade Lane, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi 110001

8 January 2012

Public Information Officer

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation,
Metro Bhawan,

Fire Brigade Lane,
Barakhamba Road,
New Delhi 110001

Sir,

This is an application under the RTI Act. Postal Order for Rs10/ is attached as required. Queries are:

  1. On Monday 2nd January ’12, the metro train that left Janakpuri East Metro Station at 9.53am for Vaishali, on reaching Karkarduma station, the driver announced that the train will be terminated at AnandVihar station, and that passengers who needed to go beyond Anand Vihar need to leave the train, and can board the next train which is following just behind and will go upto Vaishali.

Now please confirm if this train, which on 2nd January ’12, had left Janakpuri East Metro Station at 9.53am for Vaishali, did go upto Vaishali or was it terminated at Anand Vihar itself?

  1. Whether driver’s log entries and supervisor’s approvals for the above incident of changing destination of train midway through the journey, will be available for scrutiny on demand?
  2. If the train, which on 2nd January ’12, had left Janakpuri East Metro Station at 9.53am for Vaishali, went upto Vaishali, then why did the driver ask the passengers to leave the train at Karkarduma? If the train was indeed terminated at AnandVihar itself, what was the pressing reason for the sudden change? If some technical reason, what was it exactly?
  3. The driver had announced that passengers who are leaving the train can board the next train which is following just behind and which will go upto Vaishali. He had misinformed the passengers on both accounts. Normally metro service at such peak hour is at 2 to 3 minute intervals. When driver assured that next train is following just behind, it was expected that next train will come 2 to 3 minutes later.  But the next train came 8 minutes later. Moreover, this next train, which came 8 minutes later, was only upto AnandVihar and not upto Vaishali as the passengers had been told.

What was the reason that the driver of the earlier train had misguided the passengers? If he was uncertain, he could have told the passengers that he was uncertain. Many passengers complained that had not the driver assured about the next train following just behind, and that it will go upto Vaishali, they might have continued upto AnandVihar in the first train itself, and then on foot crossed one road that is the border between Delhi State and UP State, and once on UP side, could have access to many share-auto and similar services to stations in UP (Kaushambi and Vaishali) and surrounding areas to reach their destination quickly, instead of being held up at Karkarduma in Delhi.

  1. Is there a code of conduct for drivers regarding communicating correctly and truthfully with passengers? In case of instance of driver having misinformed and misguided passengers, what would be the punishment, and whether above quoted incident would invite punishment?
  2. Furthermore, this second train, which came 8 minutes after the earlier one, and which was not to go to Vaishali as had been announced, but only upto AnandVihar as now highlighted on the destination board of the train and the station, when passengers stranded at Karkarduma,boarded it to go to AnandVihar, the driver of this second train, announced suddenly that the train is being terminated at Karkarduma itself, and the passengers who had just boarded are to again leave this train too.  What was the reason for this most sudden change of destination? Could this harassment of passengers, many with luggage to take a long distance train at AnandVihar RailTerminal, not have been avoided at all?
  3. Whether there exists, and will be produced on demand, recordings of such driver’s announcements, and do they all have supervisor’s approval, and if approval is post-facto, reasons why no prior approval could be or as taken?
  4. A DMRC staffer informs that real reason for the above incidents was that the in-laws of one of the drivers were travelling in the first train, and the driver wanted to harass them by not allowing them to reach their destination near Kaushambi in time, and hence had done all this in collaboration with a few other drivers and staff who belonged to the same village or district or community. How is the DMRC equipped to prevent such abuse of facilities and privileges by low-educated staff?
  5. To which village, district, State, and community did the drivers of the two trains belong?

 

 

 

DMRC RTI

11 Responses to delhi metro havoc by drivers

  1. Helping Hand - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
    January 9, 2012 at 4:38 PM

    I think that the announcements made by the metro drivers are based on technical information they get from controll room. It seems unbelievable that the staff of metro can unite with other staff just to emberrase some other passanger. However an RTI can be framed on the points raised by u.

  2. Anand - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
    January 9, 2012 at 5:08 PM

    I agree that this is such a pure nonsense and we should be able to file an RTI.
    My only worry is, that this application need to be drafted in a more concise manner, without so much of the entire story and sounding so aggressive. Otherwise, the chances of the RTI application, getting rejected is very high.

    Let us draft this such that we can get the Driver’s log entries and other documents from the Delhi Metro

  3. Helping Hand - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
    January 9, 2012 at 8:32 PM

    To,
    Shri Anuj Dayal, Public Information Officer,
    Chief Public Relations Officer Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd., Metro Bhawan, Fire Brigade Lane, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi – 110001 (O) 23418415.
    Subject: Information under RTI Act.

    Sir,

    Please provide me the following information under RTI Act.
    1. Guidelines followed by Metro Train Drivers for making announcements.
    2. Action taken for violation of guidelines/wrong announcements.
    3. Provide me the log entries made by Metro Train Driver of Metro that left Janakpuri East Metro Station at 9.53am for Vaishali on Monday 2nd January ’12.
    4. Reason for terminating the train (mentioned in point 3) at Annand Vihar Metro Station.

    Thanks & Regards.

  4. Anand - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
    January 9, 2012 at 10:01 PM

    Thank You Mr. Helping Hand. I was struggling yesterday to draft this. Couldn’t have drafted this better
    Anand

  5. Malathy Dev - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
    January 16, 2012 at 3:58 PM

    Thanks for the suggestions. I will now print and post this RTI.

    • Anand - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
      January 16, 2012 at 11:30 PM

      Thanks Malathyji
      Please put the speed post number as a comment to this post.
      Once we have the speed post number, this will help the original requestor to track the application and I will then move it to Filed RTI Category

  6. Malathy Dev - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
    January 18, 2012 at 5:29 PM

    Speed post consignment no. ED 441246225 IN. Copy attached.

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NUIevqBLstVrrM7mVtuVjD1SGIaou1uqn2ecRUcTgu8/edit

    • Anand Sharma says:
      February 29, 2012 at 10:19 PM

      Please look at this reply.
      This is the reason, why I have been asking you not to just file an RTI, without proper drafting.
      This RTI was in-fact drafted pretty well by Mr. Helping Hand.
      But Your copy was a simple copy paste of the original post, which was obvious to all of us, that it will be rejected or not replied.

      • Malathy Dev says:
        March 1, 2012 at 11:33 AM

        This is why what you have been telling in not right. The objective is not only to get an answer. If it were so, you may simply ask “What does DMRC stand for?”, which is drafted simple-simple, and you will get a very clear answer! But the objective is to solve a problem. As the Chief Information Commissioner Mr Shailesh Gandhi says, “… information officers are unlikely to reveal sensitive information at the first go and the group would need to pursue matters diligently.” Does this quote above look familiar? No?
        All of Mr Helping Hand’s questions have been included in the RTI. Did you not notice? DMRC has replied to Mr Helping Hand’s questions too, but these replies also are not useful.
        A response by a PIO, instead of spurring RTI Anon members to start throwing charges at each other like children throw balloons on Holi, should be an opportunity to get together and corner the PIO. For instance, an RTI to DMRC asked for month-wise details of deductions from salary of an employee. This information is of course personal, and the DMRC in order to discourage such RTI, tried to impose a disclosure fee of about Rs 14000/ on the applicant. This was struck down, and while doing so the CIC issued a warning to DMRC to desist from such practices (see page: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200902022081.htm). This can be cited wrt to Q no. 10.
        We can draft a reply to the PIO himself instead of Appellate Authority, and extract as much as we can. Our response can go to the given fax no. of the PIO. Writing of the incident serves a purpose even though PIO says it is explanation/ justification query so he will not answer. The purpose is that now it exists on record, which will be read all up the way. The key information we should focus on is response to item no. 2, and to 8, that is driver’s log do not exist, nor do they have approval of supervisor. To write further, we need to see “Powers, Duties…Procedures…Norms… Regulations, Instructions” the links of which appear on DMRC website, but loading does not happen. We can try again, then query PIO why links are not working.

  7. Anand - RTI Anonymous Team Member says:
    January 20, 2012 at 3:52 PM

    Thanks Malathiji
    Moving this Filed RTI Category

  8. Param Dhar says:
    February 29, 2012 at 9:41 PM

    We have received reply to this RTI Application.

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