The fare hike by the Delhi Metro is once again running into controversy with an RTI query revealing that the Metro has lost a ridership of over three lakh passengers a day. The loss occurred after the fare hike came into effect.
According to the information provided by the RTI query, the metro’s daily average ridership came down to 24.2 lakh in October from 27.4 lakh in September, a fall of around 11 per cent.
The Blue Line, considered the Metro’s busiest, lost over 30 lakh commuters, according to data shared by the DMRC, while the fall, in terms of absolute numbers, was over 19 lakh on the Yellow Line, another busy corridor.
The issue soon turned into a political fight with BJP, AAP and Congress leaders indulging in a blame game. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, “That many passengers have taken to other means of tpt, thus increasing pollution n congestion on roads. Metro fare hike has not benefited anyone.”
About the drop in numbers, Union Minister Vijay Goel said efforts would be made to increase the number of passengers. “If need be, I will raise the issue of fare hike at the Centre,” he said.
Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said both the Kejriwal government and the Centre were responsible for the fall in ridership. “The Delhi chief secretary was a part of the fare fixation panel. Kejriwal government gave DMRC chief Mangu Singh an extension of four years. The panel’s report had come on September 2016. Was the Kejriwal government sleeping all this while?” he said on Twitter.
However, the DMRC in a release on Friday said that the drop in the ridership is not solely attributable to increase in fares as there are other monthly variations noted throughout the year.
“In the month of October there were five Sundays in comparison to September with four where ridership is around 60-70% of the working day ridership. This monthly variation in ridership is dependent on the multiple factors like seasons, vacations, holidays, festivals etc,” it said.
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