Five days after the resumption of Delhi Metro services in a graded manner with staggered timings, the nearly 400-km-long metro network became fully operational on Saturday, with the reopening of the Airport Express Line — over five months after all operations were suspended owing to COVID-19 pandemic.
Services were available throughout the day – from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. – for the first time on Saturday, since operations were suspended on March 22. The Delhi Metro witnessed a ridership of 1.52 lakh as opposed to 1.28 lakh on Friday. With a ridership of over 44,000, the Yellow Line saw the highest footfall followed by the Blue Line at over 42,000 on Saturday.
Following complaints on social media pertaining to violation of protocol by commuters, the Delhi Metro has also deployed flying squads to “counsel and advise” passengers to follow norms.
Fined for flouting norms
As a part of its new protocol, commuters have to wear face masks throughout the journey and while on metro premises. Tokens have also been discontinued and mandatory use of smart cards have been put in place. According to data provided by the DMRC, 200 people were “counselled” for not wearing face masks properly and 114 were fined ₹200 for violating norms on Saturday.
On Friday, 150 passengers were counselled, while fines were imposed on 92.
Despite concerns and apprehensions, ridership on the metro network saw steady increase with graded resumption of operations on different corridors.
The first corridors to reopen on Monday were the 49.31-km-long Yellow Line (Samaypur Badli to Huda City Centre) and 12-km-long Rapid Metro, Gurugram.
The Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 21 – Noida Electronic City/Vaishali) and Pink Line (Shiv Vihar – Majlis Park) resumed services on Wednesday followed by the Red Line (Rithala to Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda), Green Line (Kirti Nagar – Bahadurgarh) and Violet Line (Kashmere Gate to Ballabgarh).
Under the first phase of resumption, metro services were available for eight hours a day – from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The ridership on Thursday, after the completion of the Stage 1 resumption, stood at over 84,000 till 7:30 pm.
It crossed the 1 lakh mark once the Magenta Line (Janakpuri West – Botanical Garden) and Grey Line (Dwarka to Najafgarh) were made operational. On Friday, the operation timings were extended to 12 hours a day.
