Delhi Metro’s Daily Ridership Goes Downhill, Five Lakh Less Commuters Travel This Year

The Delhi Metro's daily ridership has decreased and the numbers only seem to decline over the period of time. The Delhi Metro has seen a loss of nearly five lakh commuters as compared to last year.

New Delhi, June 21: The Delhi Metro’s daily ridership has decreased and the numbers only seem to decline over the period of time. The Delhi Metro has seen a loss of nearly five lakh commuters as compared to last year. The ridership saw a decline after the Delhi Metro had increased its fares last year not once but twice. Since then, it has been unable to recover the numbers. It has been nearly eight months since the fares were increased but the ridership has only decreased with time.

An RTI application confirms the data obtained which has been mentioned above. Even the seasonal change could not help increase the flailing number of commuters. Calling the situation to be extremely worrisome, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot alleged that it was the Centre’s fault because of which the ridership had declined in the Delhi metros.

He said,”The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) implemented this hike on the Centre’s insistence. If over 5 lakh people have switched from public to private transport, then only the Centre is responsible. At a time when some cities around the world are making public transport totally free, DMRC can still make amends and reduce its fares to gain ridership.”

A total of 22 lakh commuters have used the metro services during the month of March and April this year and at least 22.67 lakh commuters have been traveling on Metro’s Yellow, Blue, Red, Green and Violet corridors on a daily basis. The number which should have been 30 lakh by now hasn’t been seeing much progress. As per Metro’s statistics, the Metro received a much warm response when there had been less corridors with fewer stations. The main problem arose when metro introduced a second hike in their fares and thus the ridership plummeted. The ridership was steady until September last year and registered an average ridership in the subsequent months but saw a major crash in the number of commuters after it revised its fares for the second time.