Chennai metro services extended to Sundays and public holidays – Hindustan Times

Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) announced extending the services on Sundays and other public holidays starting from today. The services will be operated with a frequency of ten minutes from 7am to 10pm, Tamil Daily Hindu Tamil reported.

According to the statement from CMRL, metro services are operated from 5.30am to 10pm from Monday to Saturday after the state government eased Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. During peak hours of 8am to 11am in the morning and 5pm to 8pm in the evening, the services are operated with a frequency of five minutes while the frequency is maintained at 10 mins during the rest of the day.

The statement further mentioned that the CMRL adheres to Covid-19 guidelines of the state government and that coronavirus-appropriate norms are implemented in the trains. Passengers not wearing masks are slapped with a fine. The CMRL said that it collected ₹9,200 from 42 passengers for violating the mask rule.

To facilitate the passengers, the CMRL decided to operate the metro services on Sundays and public holidays with a frequency of 10 minutes, the statement noted.

After the metro services resumed on June 21, the CMRL recorded a footfall of 12,37,552, all of them being passengers who regularly use the metro train services. On Friday, a record 69,794 passengers availed its services, said CMRL officials.

Metro train services were suspended on May 10 after the state government announced a total lockdown from May 10 to 24. The services resumed on June 21 after the state government allowed public travel in Chennai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, and Thiruvallur districts. The services resumed with 50% occupancy once the government started relaxing the lockdown in phases.

The train services were operated from 6.30am to 9pm initially, when the lockdown was relaxed in Chennai. The operations were scaled as more relaxations followed when the state government extended the lockdown in coming days.