Govt officials to meet officers of Metro to chalk out modalities to resume ops

Kolkata: The state government officials will conduct a meeting with the Metro in connection with the resumption of sub-urban trains and metro at Nabanna on Thursday.

The meeting will be held at 11.30 am with the officials of the state government including the chief secretary.

According to sources, the Kolkata Metro Railway is considering resuming services from the third week of this month. However, the tentative date for resumption of metro could be September 14 because of the lockdown for two consecutive days on September 11 and 12.

When asked about the resumption of Metro service in Kolkata, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: "Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha will hold a meeting with the Metro authorities and then only we can inform that from when the service is going to resume. But as I found in the media, they may be planning to resume the Metro service from September 15."

She further stated: "It takes time as necessary precautionary measures including santisation work need to be carried out before resuming the service. We have given clearances from our side. Now let them decide from when they can resume the service. It cannot be done. It has to be done in phases."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has announced the SOP guidelines for metro operations on Wednesday. The SOP guidelines include wearing of face mask mandatorily for all passengers and staff. Stations/ entry-exit gates in containment zones should be closed. Only asymptomatic persons will be allowed to travel after thermal screening at entry into the stations. Use of the Aarogya Setu App should be encouraged.

However, necessary sanitization, repairs and replacements have also been undertaken across the network.

Tokens will not be issued for the passengers making a metro trip initially. Only smart cards will be used for travelling to prevent crowding of people at ticket counters.

Metro Railway has launched a user-friendly smart card recharge mobile App on Tuesday night. However, the app after being available on smartphones encountered technical glitches a few hours later.