Mumbai metro’s Ghatkopar-Versova line to restart from Monday
Bombay:
Mumbai’s metro services – closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus lockdown – will reopen on Monday with the Ghatkopar-Versova Metro One line – which was the only functional line before the nationwide lockdown in March – resuming operations.
SOPs (Standard Operating Protocols) for passengers, which will be subject to thermal screening upon entering stations, will include social distancing – interior visuals of coaches show stickers that highlight where you can sitting or standing – and the use of face masks. schedules – whether on trains or on the platform.
Other SOPs will include limiting the number of passengers on each four-coach train to 300 (up from a maximum of 1,500), a focus on cashless transactions when purchasing tickets, and maintaining a constant temperature ( between 25 and 27 degrees Celsius) inside coaches.
In addition, only 200 trains will run between 8 am and 8:30 am every day; before Covid, up to 450 trains ran every day.
“We only allowed 300 people to travel at a time to take social distancing into account. As the crowds increase, things will change. In addition, instead of giving tokens, people will receive paper tickets, so the risk of infection is limited. We also have a lot. online payment facilities and people will be encouraged to use it, ”said Abhay Kumar Mishra, CEO of Mumbai Metro.
Seats have been marked to ensure social distance between Mumbai metro passengers
The decision to restart metro services in the city was taken earlier this week, with Uddhav Thackeray’s government hoping this will ease the pressure on conventional public transport – like local buses – as Mumbai tries to return. to normal amid the Covid pandemic.
Metro services across India have restarted in stages following the green light from the center last month. The Delhi Metro – the country’s largest network – began limited operations on September 7 with around 7,500 passengers in the first shift.
Likewise, metro services in several other cities – including Chennai, Bengaluru, Kochi, Hyderabad and Kolkata – have also started operations after months of downtime.
Maharashtra remains the state most affected by the Covid pandemic. The state has reported more than 10,000 new cases in the past 24 hours, according to data from the Department of Health this morning.
The good news, however, is that the number of active cases has fallen by around 4,400 after more than 14,000 recoveries were recorded during the same period.
Overall, India has recorded nearly 75 lakh cases, of which 1.14 lakh are deaths. However, the central government said on Sunday that the country had “passed the Covid summit”.
