: Commuters taking the Delhi Metro no longer need to stash away chocolate wrappers in their pockets or wonder where to chuck that empty plastic bottle as the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has finally decided to install dustbins on its premises.
To begin with, the DMRC has planned for at all the 10 interchange stations in the metro network.
This would include the most crowded stations such as Rajiv Chowk, Kashmere Gate, Central Secretariat, Yamuna Bank and New Delhi Railway Station.
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The dustbins will be transparent so that security guards could keep a check on a possible bomb scare, informed DMRC officials. Prototypes have been put up at three stations already — Barakhamba, Mandi House and Malviya Nagar.
“We would install see-through dustbins which would cater to the safety aspect. They would not be placed on platforms, but at commercial spaces. Currently, we have installed some of them on a trial basis. After gauging all aspects and public behaviour, the final design of the bin will be decided. At least 10 big stations will have such dustbins in two months,” said a senior DMRC official.
The move comes days after the Delhi High Court trashed DMRC’s bomb scare theory for not putting up spittoons and dustbins on its premises.
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Until 2008, the DMRC had installed nearly 250 dustbins at all 62 functioning stations, but these bins were removed citing a precautionary measure to avoid any possible terror attack.
The DMRC removed all the dustbins at once, when it had received an anonymous call claiming a bomb had been planted at the busy Rajiv Chowk station.
It was also the time when a bomb placed in a dustbin had rocked the Connaught Place area. Although the call was later declared hoax, the incident triggered alarm, with officials ordering removal of all dustbins from the platform areas at stations.