Delhi Metro's Blue and Pink Lines to Resume Operations from Tomorrow after 171-day Lockdown

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Tuesday said the Blue and Pink lines of the Metro service will resume operations from tomorrow.

“As part of stage-I of graded resumption of metro services, Delhi Metro will resume operations after 171 days on its Blue Line – from Dwarka Sector 21 to Electronic City/Vaishali and Pink Line – from Majlis Park to Shiv Vihar from tomorrow,” said the DMRC. “Re-opening of these two lines will ensure the availability of nine of the existing 28 interchange metro stations from tomorrow as given below: Rajouri Garden, INA Delhi Haat, Mayur Vihar Phase–I, Karkarduma, Rajiv Chowk, Yamuna Bank, Anand Vihar ISBT, Azadpur and Sikanderpur.”

“In addition to the above lines, the Red Line from Rithala to Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda (Ghaziabad), Green Line from Kirti Nagar/Inderlok to Brig Hosihar Singh (Bahadurgarh) and the Violet Line from Kashmere Gate to Raja Nahar Singh (Ballabhgarh) will resume services from September 10,” said the DMRC.

This announcement came a day after Metro train services resumed in Delhi after being closed for over five months due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The first line to be opened was the Yellow Line connecting Samaypur Badli and HUDA city centre in Gurgaon.

The Home Ministry had recently issued guidelines allowing metro services in the country to resume operations in a graded manner, following which the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said it would be done in three stages from September 7-12. Under stage one, Yellow Line or Line 2 and Rapid Metro were made operational with restricted service hours, a DMRC official said.

Trains will operate in batches of four-hour each from 7 to 11 am in the morning and 4 to 8 pm in the evening in the first stage, officials said. Metro services in the National Capital Region were halted on March 22 due to the pandemic. The DMRC has appealed to people to use the rapid transport only if urgently needed.