Crowds surge at metro stations as Bengalureans return home after long break

Bengaluru: After five days of holidays, metro stations across Bengaluru saw a big surge in commuters on Monday.

The Kengeri metro station on the Purple Line recorded the highest footfall. Stations from Challaghatta to Deepanjali Nagar also reported huge crowds.

There was also a long queue of passengers on Green Line stations on Tumakuru Road, from Madavara to Yeshwantpur.

At the Kengeri metro station, ticketing queues spilled outside the entrance while there was a longer line for frisking and checking.

Divya B K, a metro staffer at the customer care centre at Kengeri, said a rush was expected on Monday as a lot of people travel towards Mysuru over the weekend. "We had a lot of people exit this station over the holidays and the weekend, so we knew there would be a rush here on Monday, but we did not expect so many people."

She also explained that commuters preferred the Kengeri station over Challaghatta or Kengeri Bus Terminal station because of the flyover that blocks Challaghatta and the rush at the bus terminal.

Ravi, head of security at Challaghatta, said that the station had a lot of people entering and exiting on a daily basis because it is a terminal station. "We have a long line to enter and exit the station, most of the times, it is students from nearby colleges but we have a lot of travellers as well," he told DH.

A regular commuter from Pattanagere said trains were jam-packed. "Usually, there are not so many people so early in the morning, so I was shocked to see so many trains packed at 10 am."

The Majestic metro station had around 10,000 people coming in mainly from the KSR railway and the Majestic bus station entrances.

"We had to open more entrances to accommodate the crowd," a metro staffer said.

All ticket counters were functional, more staff were added and entrances were opened, the staffer said.

Since Majestic is an interchange station, most of the commuters changed lines rather than exit.

"Everytime a train would stop, a whole crowd of people would exit, and the station would be full, I had to wait out a couple of trains to even enter one", Ajay, a regular commuter, said.