Delhi Metro flying squads keep a hawk eye on Covid violators

NEW DELHI: With the number of passengers travelling by the Metro on a steady rise, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s flying squads are keeping a hawk eye on commuters violating Covid-19 safety protocols. Last month, DMRC penalised double the number of commuters compared with May this year.

In February this year, the average ‘line utilisation’ on the Delhi Metro network was 35 lakh, which increased to 39.5 lakh by May and nearly touched 42 lakh last month. The first 10 days of July saw an average line utilisation of 42.6 lakh per day. Unlike counting a passenger’s single journey as one, line utilisation takes into account every corridor used by the passenger to complete a journey.
With cases of Covid-19 surging again the world over and Metro’s footfall growing at the same time, DMRC said that it is taking all necessary measures to ensure that Covid-appropriate behaviour is strictly followed inside the trains and Metro premises.
“DMRC is adopting all necessary measures to ensure adherence to the Covid protocols. Flying squads are there to randomly check and ensure that people adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour. Hand sanitisation is also being provided,” said Anuj Dayal, principal executive director (corporate communications), DMRC. “We are also requesting our passengers to cooperate with us in maintaining these protocols,” he said.
Dayal said that in June, a total of 3,666 people were penalised for ‘creating nuisance’ under the Section 59 of DMRC’s Operations and Maintenance Act, 2002. As there are no provisions in the Act for prosecution of those not wearing face masks or not maintaining social distancing, DMRC imposes a penalty of Rs 200 on such violators for ‘creating nuisance in Metro premises.’
The number of fines issued by DMRC’s flying squads last month is an increase of nearly 70% compared with the 2,160 fines issued in the month of May. “So far in July, over 2,100 passengers have been penalised under the same section,” Dayal said.
When Delhi Metro restarted train operations from September 2020 after the Covid-19 outbreak, the corporation had deployed its flying squads to penalise commuters not wearing a face mask or not wearing one properly, apart from not following other Covid-appropriate behaviour like maintaining social distancing. In the initial months of 2021, when many restrictions on Metro travel were removed, footfall increased and the flying squads also used to issue 7,000 to 8,000 fines every month.