New Delhi, Sep 9 : Several commuters on Wednesday arrived at the stations of the Delhi Metro's Blue and Pink Lines, which began the services after a break of 171 days, and two days after the services on the Yellow line and Rapid Metro resumed.
People were seen standing in queues, to enter the metro station, following the protocol of the social distancing.
The DMRC has prepared plans in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure the protocol of social distancing, control overcrowding, and proper sanitisation of train rakes and station premises.
Speaking to IANS, Preeti, health worker, who boarded the Blue Line metro from Noida said, "I am excited now as the Metro services has resumed on Blue Line."
She said that now she will be able to save 70 per cent of amount that she was spending on commuting through cab and taxis in the absence of metro services.
When asked, the metros not crowded as earlier, she said, "Still people have Covid-19 phobia and it is the reason why less crowd is ther win the metro."
Pradeep Bhanot, a contractual DTC employee and a resident of Jagatpuri area in east Dekhu said: "I am happy that the services of Blue Line have started, now I can easily commute from Preet Vihar to other places."
He also said that timing of the metros should be increased for the commuters.
Deepika Saxena, who boarded the Blue Line metro from Noida Sector 61 for Barakhamba Road said, "Today for the first time in five months that I am going to join my office.
It is a good feeling as the Metro staff have maintained good quality of services in terms of sanitisation and crowd management."
She further said that metro is a good means to travel as it is safe as well as it saves travelling time, where one has to deal with heavy traffic during rush hours.
The resumption of service on these two additional lines comes two days after the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) started the services on the Yellow Line and Gurugram's Rapid Metro as part of Stage 1 of "graded resumption of Metro services".
The Blue line runs from Dwarka Sector-21 to Electronic City (Noida), and Vaishali while the Pink line runs between Majlis Park and Shiv Vihar.
The services available on both of these Lines are between 7 a.m.
to 11 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. along with Yellow/Rapid Lines which are already operational.
The re-opening of these two Lines ensures availability of nine of the existing 28 interchange Metro stations -- Rajouri Garden, INA Delhi Haat, Mayur Vihar Phase - I, Karkardooma, Rajiv Chowk, Yamuna Bank, Anand Vihar ISBT, Azadpur, and Sikandarpur.
In addition to these, three more routes -- Red Line, Green Line, and Violet Line -- will also resume services on Thursday.
Also, the rest of the remaining lines will also be re-opened under Stage-2 and Stage-3 of the Graded resumption plan on September 11 and 12, respectively.
--IANS
Anb/aks/rs/.
Source: IANS
