Delhi Metro to restart services from September 7 (archive)
New Delhi:
Delhi Deputy Governor Anil Baijal accepted a proposal from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to resume metro services in the national capital from September 7, sources said on Wednesday. The decision was made at a meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, of which Mr. Baijal is Chairman.
Metro services will resume, albeit with strict Covid restrictions, after a five-month shutdown due to the pandemic and closure.
The use of masks and smart cards (to eliminate unnecessary physical contact from the use of tokens) has been made mandatory for travel in the Delhi metro. The air conditioning system inside the wagons will be “renovated” to ensure fresh air circulation, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said.
“We still have to make a decision on what the optimal temperature should be inside the trains,” the minister told NDTV, adding that hand sanitizer would be provided at stations and thermal scans would also be mandatory.
The minister also said that trains will not stop at all stations; those that remain closed in the first days of the restart of the service will be reopened in phases.
“Those in the containment zones will remain closed,” he added.
The Delhi Metro has published a detailed list of guidelines for the use of its services during the pandemic. Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri will release more SOPs for the operation of subway trains at 6pm.
Delhi Metro services are scheduled to restart from September 7
Last week, Kejriwal asked the center to allow metro services to start in the national capital, arguing that the Covid situation in the city had improved. He urged the center to “treat Delhi differently.”
On Tuesday, however, Delhi reported its biggest single-day increase in new cases in nearly two months: 2,312 new infections were reported, bringing the total cases to more than 1.77 lakh.
The city has also reported nearly 5,000 deaths related to the Covid virus.
A seroprevalence survey, to estimate the spread of the virus, carried out early last month showed that 29.1 percent of the city’s population had been exposed.
Metro services across India have been allowed to restart this month in accordance with “Unlocking” guidelines issued by the center on Saturday. Services will be gradually restarted, the center said, with strict rules to minimize contact between people and stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
The decision to restart metro services comes amid a worrying increase in new cases; About 79,000 new infections were reported during the previous 24 hours, government data showed this morning.
The country has reported more than 60,000 new cases every day since August 19, and is now less than two lakhs away from becoming the second most affected in the world; Brazil has 39.5 billion cases compared to 37.7 in India.
The United States, with 60.74 lakh of cases, is the most affected country.
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