Delhi revises Covid guidelines further. What's allowed, what remains shut
Premium- Cinema halls, theatres, and multiplexes will function with 50% capacity
The Delhi government on Saturday allowed metro and buses to operate with 100% capacity from 26 July. Metro services were earlier allowed with 50% capacity. With Covid situation under control, the Delhi government has now allowed cinema halls, theatres, and multiplexes to function with 50% capacity. Marriage related gatherings are also permitted with a ceiling of 100 persons.
What is permitted
- All standalone shops and colony shops in residential complexes
- All markets, markets complexes and malls between 10 am to 8 pm
- Restaurants are allowed upto 50% of the seating capacity from 8 am to 10 pm
- Bars are allowed upto 50% of the seating capacity from 12 noon to 10 pm
- Cinemas/theatres/multiplexes are allowed upto 50% of the seating capacity
- Auditoriums/assembly halls are allowed upto 50% of the seating capacity
- Business to Business exhibitions will be allowed only for business visitors
- Delhi Metro shall be allowed with 100% seating capacity. No standing passengers shall be allowed
- Buses will be allowed with 100% seating capacity
- Public transports such as autos and e-rickshaws (upto 2 passengers)/taxi, cabs, gramin sewa, phat-phat sewa (upto 2 passengers), maxi cab (upto 5 passengers), RTV (upto 11 passengers) are allowed.
- Marriage related gatherings shall be permitted with a ceiling of 100 persons
What remains shut
- All schools, colleges, educational/coaching institutes will remain closed. Online/distance learning shall continue to be permitted and should be encouraged
- All social, political, sports, entertainment, cultural, religious, festival related gatherings and congregations
Delhi Metro services were shut in April, when infection had started rising in the national capital. In June, Metro services were allowed but with just 50% of its capacity.
Only half of Delhi Metro's available trains were in service at a frequency of five to fifteen minutes when the operations started. The number of trains were inducted in full strength in a graded manner.
In order to ensure social distancing and compliance to 50% seating inside trains, the public was advised to take extra time for their daily commute and exhibit Covid appropriate behaviour outside the stations also while waiting for their turn to enter the station. Entry at stations was regulated through identified gates as was the practice earlier.
However, due to limited capacity, long cues were seen outside many stations in city. In a statement, the DMRC chief explained the reason behind the long cues and said that queues had been observed outside the metro stations as the entry to the station was regulated due to restrictions on number of passengers to be allowed inside the train.
"As per the current guidelines only sitting on alternate seats is allowed inside the trains. Although DMRC is running maximum number of trains, passengers have to wait outside the stations due to above restrictions."
At present, carrying capacity of Delhi Metro as per the existing guidelines is in the range of 10 to 15%. The long queues are caused as the single-entry points are only permitted at most of the Metro stations as in mass transit system it is difficult to regulate the number of persons inside the system once entry is permitted, DMRC chief Mangu Singh said.
The DMRC is running 5100 trains everyday with peak frequency of 2.5 min to 5 min on all the major corridors. This was the same frequency at which Metro was operating at pre-Covid times. The Metro is thus operating and running at its full frequency but with reduced number of passengers owing to the restrictions, Singh added.
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