Gurgaon: Long queues were witnessed outside several metro stations in Gurgaon on Wednesday after Delhi announced that trains will run at 50% capacity with no provision for standing for commuters.
Passengers, seen jostling to move ahead in queues, expressed concern over the rush and the wait time. Lowering the passenger capacity, they said, was pointless as many were forced to stand in queues on stations and platforms sans social distancing.
Amid a rise in Covid cases in the national capital, the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) imposed fresh restrictions and capped the seating capacity on Delhi metro to 50% seating capacity and disallowed standing passengers.
Sarita Yadav, 38, from Dharuhera, who was travelling to Delhi, said she would have started earlier if she had known there would be a delay. Yadav, who was due to reach Delhi at 11.30 am for a work-related appointment, had to wait in the queue outside the metro station till noon.
Another Satish Kumar, 34, who also had to stand in a queue for nearly half an hour, claimed he missed an important meeting at work. “What’s the point? We are standing outside in a long queue back to back. Won’t we contract Covid here in the queue and take it along inside the metro station? Isn’t this entire exercise by the government futile and meant to create inconvenience for us,” Kumar said.
Two CISF personnel, stationed outside IFFCO Chowk metro station to manage the queue, said that the gates were shut for 5 minutes after each batch of 10 people was being sent inside the station. “We have received orders that a batch of 10 people will go inside after which there will be a wait of a few minutes before another batch is allowed. This is being done in the backdrop of the Covid situation,” one of the CISF personnel said.
While a few commuters appreciated the government’s decision, some said the authorities should have made provisions to manage the crowd outside stations better. “The metro authority and CISF personnel are not able to manage the crowd well. People are pushing each other, leaning on to one other, defeating the entire purpose of Covid-appropriate behaviour,” 38-year-old Kavish said.
Meanwhile, serpentine queues and waiting periods to enter a Metro station that sometimes stretch longer than the journey itself were back in Delhi also on Wednesday, along with massive crowding at bus stops during the rush hour as Level 1 of the Covid Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) was imposed. To regulate the number of passengers inside stations and trains to ensure Covid-appropriate behaviour, DMRC has kept only 444 out of the total 712 gates in the network open.
It has also requested passengers to travel only if essential and keep some additional time for travel. DMRC has deployed 15 flying squads to ensure that the safety protocol is maintained.
“Not everyone has the luxury of working from home and since private offices have been allowed to open, people like me have no option but to go to work. I can’t afford the Metro and buses are allowing very few passengers,” said Rajesh Pal, a resident of Kapashera.
Amit Bhatt, executive director (integrated transport) at WRI India, said something should be done to reduce the demand on public transport now and encourage more people to work remotely, excluding those whose job demands that they be out in the field. “In the global experience, there has not been any empirical study that says that public transport has helped in spreading Covid,” he said.
Passengers, seen jostling to move ahead in queues, expressed concern over the rush and the wait time. Lowering the passenger capacity, they said, was pointless as many were forced to stand in queues on stations and platforms sans social distancing.
Amid a rise in Covid cases in the national capital, the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) imposed fresh restrictions and capped the seating capacity on Delhi metro to 50% seating capacity and disallowed standing passengers.
Sarita Yadav, 38, from Dharuhera, who was travelling to Delhi, said she would have started earlier if she had known there would be a delay. Yadav, who was due to reach Delhi at 11.30 am for a work-related appointment, had to wait in the queue outside the metro station till noon.
Another Satish Kumar, 34, who also had to stand in a queue for nearly half an hour, claimed he missed an important meeting at work. “What’s the point? We are standing outside in a long queue back to back. Won’t we contract Covid here in the queue and take it along inside the metro station? Isn’t this entire exercise by the government futile and meant to create inconvenience for us,” Kumar said.
Two CISF personnel, stationed outside IFFCO Chowk metro station to manage the queue, said that the gates were shut for 5 minutes after each batch of 10 people was being sent inside the station. “We have received orders that a batch of 10 people will go inside after which there will be a wait of a few minutes before another batch is allowed. This is being done in the backdrop of the Covid situation,” one of the CISF personnel said.
While a few commuters appreciated the government’s decision, some said the authorities should have made provisions to manage the crowd outside stations better. “The metro authority and CISF personnel are not able to manage the crowd well. People are pushing each other, leaning on to one other, defeating the entire purpose of Covid-appropriate behaviour,” 38-year-old Kavish said.
Meanwhile, serpentine queues and waiting periods to enter a Metro station that sometimes stretch longer than the journey itself were back in Delhi also on Wednesday, along with massive crowding at bus stops during the rush hour as Level 1 of the Covid Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) was imposed. To regulate the number of passengers inside stations and trains to ensure Covid-appropriate behaviour, DMRC has kept only 444 out of the total 712 gates in the network open.
It has also requested passengers to travel only if essential and keep some additional time for travel. DMRC has deployed 15 flying squads to ensure that the safety protocol is maintained.
“Not everyone has the luxury of working from home and since private offices have been allowed to open, people like me have no option but to go to work. I can’t afford the Metro and buses are allowing very few passengers,” said Rajesh Pal, a resident of Kapashera.
Amit Bhatt, executive director (integrated transport) at WRI India, said something should be done to reduce the demand on public transport now and encourage more people to work remotely, excluding those whose job demands that they be out in the field. “In the global experience, there has not been any empirical study that says that public transport has helped in spreading Covid,” he said.
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