Almost two weeks after the much-awaited ITO Metro station was thrown open for public use, an average of around 7,000 people are using the Metro service to reach ITO every day.According to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) figures, while the ITO station witnessed a ridership of 701 people on the day of its opening, it really picked up from the very next dayOn the second day of operation, the rider-ship on the new station jumped to 6,573 people and crossed the 7,000-mark on June 10 with a ridership of 7,131. Ever since then, the ridership on the new station has been consistently around 7,000 on weekdays.
However, it understandably dipped on the weekend to 3,689 on Saturday (June 13) and 2,634 (June 14) on Sunday. On Monday, it again crossed the 7,000 mark with a ridership of 7,022.The station was thrown open to public only in the evening on June 8.However, commuters also complained of mismanagement at Mandi House Metro station in the initial days of operation of the ITO station with many people being clueless about which way the approaching train will go: whether it will go till ITO or will it terminate at Mandi HouseIJ
While many commuters mistakenly boarded the train to ITO on the first few days while planning to go towards Badarpur, many others deliberately undertook the reverse journey to get a seat in the Metro train that usually runs over-crowded.This led to DMRC making repeated announcements at the Mandi House station regarding the destination of the departing Metro train and also imposition of fines on those commuters who deliberately undertook the reverse journey.
According to a Metro official, the operation of the Mandi House-ITO stretch is now going on smoothly.DMRC had claimed that approximately 22,000 passengers are expected to use the ITO Metro station by 2016 and the number is likely to cross the 31,000 mark in 2021.
