Considering the alarming pollution levels in the city, the Delhi Metro on Wednesday decided to increase the number of train trips from 3,131 to 3,317 — an increase by 186 in all — on several routes starting from Thursday. Except the Airport line and Red line (Rithala-Dilshad Garden), all other routes will see more number of trips by trains.
However, the Delhi Metro didn’t comply with the suggestion of Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) to slash fare temporarily.
The decision to increase the frequency of trains has been apparently taken to facilitate commuting for the large number of passengers who may want to give up private vehicles in favour of public transport till the pollution abates.
Currently, rounding up 426 trips every day, Green line (Inderlok/Kirti Nagar-Mundka) will see an increase by 108 trips. Similarly, Yellow line (Huda City Centre-Samaypur Badli) will see an increase of 22 trips to 701. A total of 36 extra train trips will be undertaken on Violet line (Kashmere Gate-Escorts Mujeser), while Blue line (Vaishali/Noida City Centre-Dwarka Sector 21) — the busiest of the lot — will see addition of 20 trips.
The Delhi Metro, however, did not mention till when the extra trips would continue on these routes.
Earlier, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri asked Delhi Metro Managing Director Mangu Singh to run more train trips and stressed on the need to encourage people to use public transport but he was silent on the issue of reduction of metro fare.
The metro has also been directed to ensure deployment of additional ticketing operators and Customer Facilitation Agents to facilitate the passengers. This has been done in view of recent pollution situation in Delhi and to ensure implementation of EPCA advice.
Officials of Urban Affairs ministry ruled out reduction in metro fare saying the Delhi Metro has already implemented a differential fare system to encourage off-peak travel. “Additional 10 per cent discount is given to the passengers using Smart Card, who enter in the metro system during off peak hours and ensuring a 20 percent discounts on Smart Card to passengers who travel during the off-peak hours,” officials said.
“Measures like deployment of additional CISF personnel for the purpose for speedy frisking, Monitoring of stations /lines/Network from Control Room and setting up of team of Officers to monitor major stations for smooth traffic movement have also been suggested,” MHUA said in a statement.
“The Metro trains run very intensively nonstop from morning till late night throughout the year and therefore need regular maintenance and checkups. The train maintenance wing of DMRC has reworked the entire maintenance planning so that extra trains are available for performing more trips for the general public of Delhi-NCR. As the weather condition in the city needs urgent addressing the DMRC has decided to implement the above plan with immediate effect from today afternoon which will result in an increase of approximately 80-90 trips from Thursday,” Delhi Metro spokesperson Anuj Dayal said in a statement.