Footfall in Metro dips amid spike in cases

KOLKATA: Kolkata Metro Railway is witnessing significant reduction in passenger count amid surge in Covid cases. The passenger count reduced by over 50,000 during the last week.

Kolkata Metro Railway services, suspended in the wake of the pandemic, re-started after a gap of 176 days on September 14. On the first day of resumption of services, the passenger count was 20,000.

During the pre-pandemic days, the passenger count used to be over 6.5 lakh on a daily basis.

Metro Rail, last week, recorded 2.1 lakh to 2.3 lakh passengers daily. Kolkata Metro Railway has also decided to run less number of trains from Monday to overcome the operational cost due to reduction in the number of passengers.

"We are running revised services from April 26. At present, we are running 238 services instead of 258 services in the North- South Corridor from Monday to Friday because the passenger count has decreased due to closure of schools, colleges and offices," said an official of Kolkata Metro Railway.

About 218 services are being run instead of 232 services on Saturdays and total of 100 services instead of 104 services on Sundays.

The metro network currently consists of one operational line from Dashineshwar in the north to Kavi Subhash (Garia) in the south.