 "In pictures: Delhi Metro gearing up to resume services on Sept 7")
Delhi Metro will commence operations from September 7, in a graded manner, after a gap of more than five months. The staggered opening of the services will start from some stations for a limited period of time.
However, the frequency of the trains will be the same as it was before March 22, an official statement said adding that the frequency may be increased or decreased as per requirement.
DMRC has advised commuters to download the Union government’s Aarogya Setu application but has not made it mandatory. Wearing of masks or face cover is, however, compulsory.
Interestingly, passengers can not carry hand sanitisers beyond 30 ml quantity. The advisory includes travelling with minimum luggage and avoiding carrying metallic items.
The stoppage time of the train at a particular station has been nearly doubled, which essentially means that the trips will be longer than usual. Trains will not stop at stations falling in the containment zone and such stations will remain closed for public. Similarly, some of the stations may be skipped if social distancing is not adhered to by the passengers.
Regular cleaning of Metro stations will be done every four hours by prioritising passenger movement areas such as concourse, passages, platforms, stairs, glasswork, steelwork, etc. especially toilets.
Passengers will be permitted to sit on alternate seats only in the train or stand, maintaining adequate social distancing. ‘Do not sit here’ stickers have been fixed on alternate seats to maintain social distancing inside the train.
Forty-five major stations have been provided with auto thermal screening-cum-hand sanitisation machines whereas, rest of the Metro stations will be having provision of ‘auto sanitiser dispensers’ for hand sanitisation and thermal screening will be done manually by ‘thermal guns’.