Seepage disrupts metro services

Kolkata: On an afternoon when commuters badly needed their transportation lifeline to help them travel across the city, which was clogged with rallies, Metro services on the Blue (North-South) Line came to a halt on Tuesday due to water seepage at the Maidan station. The disruption inconvenienced thousands of commuters as most of the city's southern and central sections — from Central to Tollygunge — remained out of bounds for an hour. Surface transport could barely move because of the rally.Truncated operations were run between Central and Dakshineswar and Tollygunge to Shahid Khudiram sections. "The water seepage at Maidan was detected around 3 pm, and truncated services were introduced from 3.19 pm until normal services were restored along the entire Blue Line," a Metro Railway spokesperson said."We had to suspend services between Central and Mahanayak Uttam Kumar stations to avoid the slightest chances of electrocution," the Metro spokesperson said."I walked from Dalhousie to Esplanade and then to Park Street, from where I took an app cab to Rashbehari Avenue. It took me one-and-a-half hours to travel the distance while a metro ride would have taken 20 minutes," said Soumyadipta Saha, a commuter. "We are getting used to metro (Blue Line) disruptions, but there is little else to fall back on. Today was one of those days when we needed the metro badly," said Arati De, a teacher at a Central Avenue school.