The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Sunday (April 4) announced that it will be adding more coaches on major lines. This move can help prevent overcrowding in coaches as the country battles a sudden surge in COVID-19 cases.
DMRC in its official announcement said that the 6-coach trains will be converted into 8-coach trains on the Red line (Rithala to Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda), Yellow line (HUDA City Centre to Samaypur Badli) and Blue Line (Dwarka Sec-21 to Noida Electronic City/Vaishali) of the Delhi Metro network.
"The conversion is expected to be completed by the end of this year after which all trains on these lines will be 8-coaches," the Delhi Metro said in a tweet.
As per a DMRC press release, the process of converting all twelve 6-coach trains on Yellow Line into 8-coaches will be completed by the end of this month, thereby taking the total number of 8-coach trains on this line to 64.
“Subsequently, remaining nine 6-coach trains on Blue Line and thirty nine 6-coach trains on Red Line will be converted into 8-coach trains by the end of this year taking the total number of 8-coach trains on these lines to 74 and 39 respectively," the press release said.
The DMRC said that this activity is being carried out to increase the carrying capacity of the three main corridors of the Delhi Metro i.e. Red (Line-1), Blue (Line-3/4) and Yellow (Line-2) Lines which contribute to almost 40-50 % of passenger utilisation every day.
Currently, the Delhi Metro has a fleet of 336 trains sets comprising 181 six coach trains, 133 eight coach trains and 22 four coach trains across all its corridors.
Meanwhile, the national capital on Monday (April 5) reported 3,548 new COVID-19 cases, 2,936 recoveries, and 15 deaths.
