The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) will resume its services on the Blue and Pink lines from September 9, more than five months after the services were shut due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
As part of the stage-I of graded resumption of metro services, the Delhi Metro will resume operations after 171 days on its Blue Line i.e, Line-3/4 from Dwarka Sec -21 to Electronic City/Vaishali (65.35 km/58 stations) and Pink Line i.e, Line-7 from Majlis Park to Shiv Vihar (57.58 km & 38 stations).
The services will be available on both of these lines from 7 am to 11 am and from 4 pm to 8 pm along with Yellow/Rapid Lines which are already operational since September 7.
The re-opening of these two lines will ensure availability of nine of the existing 28 interchange metro stations as follows: 1)Rajouri Garden (Blue Line & Pink Line); 2. INA Delhi Haat (Yellow & Pink Line); 3. Mayur Vihar Phase-I (Blue Line & Pink Line); 4. Karkarduma (Blue Line & Pink Line); 5. Rajiv Chowk (Blue Line & Yellow Line); 6. Yamuna Bank (Blue Line 3 & 4); 7. Anand Vihar ISBT (Blue Line & Pink Line); 8. Azadpur (Pink Line & Yellow Line) and 9. Sikanderpur (Yellow Line & Rapid Metro).
In addition to above lines, three more lines- Red (Line-1 from Rithala to Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda Ghaziabad); Green (Line-5 from Kirti Nagar/Inderlok to Brig. Hosihar Singh Bahadurgarh) and Violet (Line-6 from Kashmere Gate to Raja Nahar Singh Ballabhgarh) will resume services from September 10 with the same schedule of 4 hours of passenger service each in the morning and evening under Stage-I plan of resumption of metro services.
On September 11, the Magenta Line (Janakpuri to Botanical) and Grey Line (Dwarka to Najafgarh) will be resumed from 7 am to 1 pm and from 4 pm to 10 pm. On September 12, on the Airport Express Line from New Delhi to Dwarka Sec-21 will also be operational. The services will be available throughout the day from 6 am to 11 pm on all lines from September 12.
Only smart card and cashless transactions will be allowed.
"Initially, we will open only one line and operating hours will be 7 am to 11 am and 4 pm hours to 8 pm. Only selected gates at the metro stations will be open for entry. A separate gate will be marked for exit only. Only the use of Smart Card and cashless/online transactions will be allowed," DMRC Chief Mangu Singh had said.
"In phase 1, on September 7, we are planning to start Yellow Line from Samaypur Badli to Huda City Centre. In phase 2, on September 9 we will start three more lines, Blue Line, Pink Line and Gurgaon Line. In phase 3, on September 10, after observing the operation and its impact, we will introduce Red Line (Ghaziabad to Rithala), the Bahadurgarh line, and the Faridabad line," he had added.
The Home Ministry, in its Unlock 4 guidelines, gave nod to the resumption of metro services from September 7 in a graded manner. The guidelines gave more relaxations in the restrictions enforced to contain the spread of COVID-19. The metro services were suspended in March due to COVID-19.
Thus, the entire Metro network will be made operational for passenger services throughout the day from September 12 onwards as it was before March 22 with all social distancing norms and guidelines to be followed by the passengers during the travel due to ongoing pandemic.
