The Delhi Metro lost over three lakh commuters a day after a steep fare hike came into effect on October 10, an RTI query has revealed.
The metro’s daily average ridership came down from 27.4 lakh in September to 24.2 lakh in October — translating to a fall of around 11%.
The Blue Line, considered the metro’s busiest, lost over 30 lakh commuters, according to data shared by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) in response to an RTI query. The 50-km corridor connects Dwarka to Noida. The metro currently has a 218-km network across Delhi-NCR.
The fall, in terms of absolute numbers, was over 19 lakh on the Yellow Line, a busy corridor that connects Gurugram to north Delhi’s Samaypur Badli.
Bucking the trend
ridership on the Violet Line, which connects ITO to Faridabad, plunged by 11.9 lakh in October. The number of riders on the Red Line, from Dilshad Garden to Rithala, came down by 7.5 lakh.
ridership has come down several notches below the numbers observed in recent years, bucking the trend of rise on the back of the launch of newer sections.
In fact, in October 2016, the metro’s daily average ridership was also 27.2 lakh, despite a comparatively shorter operational route.
On October 10 this year, the DMRC introduced a fare hike that led to a rise of around ₹10 for nearly every distance slab. This came barely five months after a 100% hike in fares.
After the first phase of the hike in May, the metro lost nearly 1.5 lakh passengers per day in June.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led government had mounted a stiff opposition to the hike, leading to a confrontation with the Centre. The DMRC and Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri had supported the move saying it was essential to maintain metro’s financial as well as operational health.
Mr. Puri had said that the Centre was in no position to disregard the recommendations of a Fare Fixation Committee, which had drawn up the revised fare list.
The revised fare structure is: ₹10 for up to 2 km, ₹20 for 2-5 km, ₹30 for 5-12 km, ₹40 for 12-21 km, ₹50 for 21-32 km and ₹60 for beyond 32 km.
Asked to comment on the drop in number of passengers, Union Minister Vijay Goel said efforts would be made to increase the number of passengers.
“If need be I will raise the issue of fare hike at the Centre,” he said.
