DMRC ridership declined during riots, protests: Govt

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC) has said that there was some decline in cumulative ridership due to protests and riots in Delhi, the Centre has informed Parliament.

Responding to Unstarred Questions, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs told the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Thursday that the DMRC faced loss of an estimated revenue of Rs 1,609 crore due to closure of Metro services in view of Covid-19 pandemic.

The Ministry said that preparatory work like detailed designing, preparation of tender schedule, and finalisation of tenders were carried out by the DMRC during the countrywide lockdown.

Asked "whether the government has devised any strategy to mitigate the effect of losses incurred by the DMRC", the Ministry said various innovative means like provisioning of feeder system, property development at stations and on other land, leasing of spaces, Transit Oriented Development and Value Capture Finance are enumerated in Metro Rail Policy, 2017 to enhance revenue of DMRC".

Ensuring financial sustainability during operations of the Metro rail system is the responsibility of the state government," it further said.

Responding to the question as to how the DMRC is managing or restructuring loan payments, the Ministry said that payments towards loans have been made by it as per the schedule.

The DMRC resumed its public services from September 7 following the Ministry of Home Affairs' new guidelines, after more than five months.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Centre suspended the Metro rail services in the last week of March.

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry has issued Standard Operating Procedures for the functioning of Metro trains allowed under the 'Unlock 4' guidelines.

Communal violence had erupted on the issue of Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Clashes broke out in northeast Delhi on February 24 between protesters as well as supporters of CAA, which spiralled out of control to leave at least 53 people dead and around 200 injured.