KOLKATA: Metro daily footfall on Friday breached the 2.5 lakh mark, in just 50 days. In the earlier stint of post-Covid resumption, it took five months to attain the milestone. The city’s transport lifeline registered 2,57,453 passengers on Friday, less than two months after it restarted operations on July 16. The carrier now runs 240 trains from Monday to Friday.
From Monday, the last trains will leave terminals at 9.30pm instead of 9pm and Metro Railway will add six services to accommodate the increase in passenger load.
Metro is currently the most viable option of transport, with very few buses plying. It is also the cheapest with skyrocketing fuel prices affecting normal and app-cab fares. Instead, one can travel the entire 32km of the North-South line, from Dakshineswar to Kavi Subhas, for just Rs 25.
When the carrier had resumed services after last year’s lockdown on September 14, the passenger count was only around 20,000. But trains were chock-a-block from the first day, prompting the authorities to add trains — from 192 to the current 220 services — and extend operation hours. The passenger count jumped from 1.2 lakh to 1.7 lakh in the first seven days. During the last week, the count had been hovering around 2.4 lakh until it touched 2.5 lakh on the last weekday.
Before the pandemic, Metro ran 288 services from Monday to Friday.
