While the Ministry of Home Affairs indicated on Monday to allow the state governments to resume metro services from September 1, the experts and passenger forums have demanded resumption of Chennai Metrorail services with strict Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).
It has been more than four months since the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) suspended its services due to the Pandemic. But the State government has not made up its mind in recommencing Metrorail service so far despite the CMRL making arrangements, including disinfecting stations and floor markers for physical distancing, to resume the service at any time.
Shreya Gadepalli, South Asia Programme Lead, Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), said that many cities worldwide had already resumed public transport services with appropriate safety measures including the universal use of masks, social distancing and no talking in public transport. Metro should sanitize coaches regularly and display such information to build public trust’, she said
V Rama Rao, director, Traffic and Transportation Forum, has also urged the state government to take steps to resume the metro services, but he cautioned that sub-urban rail services should not be allowed to recommence as it will be very difficult to control the crowd of passengers inside the train. ‘What we got to know is that CMRL is ready to resume services with SOP. We urge the state government should allow them to try the services with low frequency, cutting down the number of passengers and services. The temperature checks should be made mandatory before passengers enter the station’, he said
In the pre-pandemic period the CMRL, with its daily ridership of over 1.02 lakh, was running trains every five minutes during peak hours. According to the CMRL officials, all the 32 stations have already been made ready for operation. If we are given permission to run the trains by the state government, we will arrange all safety measures in a matter of time. We have already placed CCTV and disinfectants in all stations.
We had started the precautionary activities even before the national lockdown was announced. As part of the programme, Precautionary messages had been sent as SMS to their cell phones for the benefit of metro commuters. Do’s and don’ts are published at all metro stations along with the announcements which are regularly made for the benefit of the passengers. So monitoring and controlling the crowd will not be a difficult task’, said the officials.
