Kolkata Metro zips past 8 lakh ridership in a day, earns 1.6 crore from tickets

KOLKATA: On Monday, the city’s 74-km metro grid achieved a milestone — 8 lakh passengers across its five corridors. The same day, East-West Metro (Green Line) crossed the 2-lakh daily ridership mark for the first time.On Aug 21, that is the day before three new metro sections were thrown open adding 14km to the network, 6.2 lakh travellers had used the 60-km network, garnering a revenue of Rs 90.2 lakh for Metro Railway. This Monday, Kolkata Metro’s earnings shot up to Rs 1.6 crore, the highest in four decades of operations in the city. The earnings from North-South Blue Line alone was over Rs 1 crore.Across the metro grid, it was Dum Dum station on Blue Line that clocked the maximum number of passengers — 66,000 — on Monday.

Esplanade, which serves as an interchange between Blue Line and Green Line, was at second place with 57,000 passengers followed by Sealdah and Howrah stations on the Green Line at 49,000 and 48,000 respectively.

Of the 8.1 lakh passengers who travelled by metro on Monday, the majority — 5.8 lakh — availed Blue Line, the city’s transportation lifeline for four decades. The newer Green Line, which began its full 16.6-km run from Sector V to Howrah Maidan on Aug 22, recorded 2 lakh commuters.

“Together, the city’s five metro corridors earned Rs 1.6 crore on Sept 1. Around 40% of the transaction was done digitally. This shows the high adoption of Aamar Kolkata Metro app to purchase QR-code tickets instead of queuing up at the counters for cash exchanges,” a Metro Railway official said. The Blue Line earned Rs 1.1 crore, Green Line Rs 38 lakh, Yellow Line (Noapara-Airport) Rs 2 lakh, Purple Line (Joka-Majerhat) Rs 1.1 lakh and Orange Line (New Garia-Metropolitan) Rs 76,195.

Yellow Line’s ridership for the day was 6,996, slightly more than Purple Line’s 6,665. The Orange Line, which has just been extended by 4.4 km from Ruby to Metropolitan (Beleghata station), recorded 5,443 commuters.

There has been a sharp rise on footfall and passenger revenue for Kolkata Metro ever since the three new sections became operational. The most significant addition, the Green Line’s 2.6 km Esplanade-Sealdah segment that facilitated the corridor’s entire 16.6-km operations, has made all the difference. The Green Line interfaces with the Blue Line at Esplanade, which has another interchange with the Yellow Line at Noapara.