BMRCL to allow 50 percent occupancy in Namma Metro services during weekends

Bengaluru: The Bengaluru Metro Railway Corporation Limited (BMRCL) on Wednesday announced reduction of commuters' occupancy to 50 percent during weekends in view of rising Covid cases in the city. According to BMRCL Managing Director Anjum Parvez, the metro services will run only with 50 per cent occupancy.

"Our green and Indigo lines will run as per the schedule during the weekend curfew with just 50 per cent occupancy. In normal times our schedules used to run with 1900 people but during the Covid weekend curfew we have cut it down to just 800 people per schedule. In addition, to keep the movement at bare minimum we have decided to run every schedule with 30-minute interval against the normal 15 minute," Parvez stated. No standing passengers would be allowed on all BMRCL services.

This decision has been taken after the State government announced a fresh Covid protocol on Tuesday.

Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has also announced that it will not run its schedules on the weekend curfew period. It will stop all its routes from Friday 10 pm onwards and open them only at 6 am on Monday, according to BMTC Managing Director Anbukumar.

However, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation will run all its interstate services normally during the weekend curfew. "The Corporation has decided to keep its schedules running but release the routes based on the availability of passengers. We are running services to Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh on a daily basis. We will however require the passengers to furnish a negative RT-PCR certificate before boarding our vehicles," said KSRTC Managing Director Shivayogi Kalasad.