Chennai Metro services extended from Monday! A few days ago, the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) had extended metro train operations from 5.30 AM to 9:00 PM following rising demand from commuters for services in the mornings. Now, the CMRL announced that from Monday, the trains will be operated on weekdays (from Monday to Saturday) from 5.30 AM to 10:00 PM along the Green Line (between St. Thomas Mount metro station and Puratchi Thalaivar Dr. M G Ramachandran Central metro station) and Blue Line (between Airport metro station and Wimco Nagar metro station), according to an IE report.
Now, the peak hour metro services will be from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM and 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM with metro trains operating with a headway of five minutes. During non-peak hours, Chennai Metro trains will continue to run with a headway of 10 minutes. While trains during weekends as well as on public holidays will run from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM every 10 minutes without peak hours.
According to the report, as part of Covid-19 management, Chennai Metro has been regularly sanitising stations and trains. As only 50 per cent occupancy is allowed inside trains, seats have been marked with ‘X’ in order to ensure social distancing. Also, for all metro users, face masks and social distancing are mandatory. To ensure the same, crowd control staff have been deployed across all metro stations in the city.
In a statement, the CMRL stated that fines amounting to Rs 200 are being levied by the squads on metro users who are not wearing masks while travelling in the metro. Till July 9, a total of 40 commuters have been fined and an amount of Rs 8000 has been collected towards the same. On June 21, Chennai Metro services had resumed with 50 per cent occupancy, following relaxation of Covid lockdown restrictions in the state of Tamil Nadu.
