Namma Metro trains won’t stop at overcrowded stations

Starting Monday, when you board the metro, don’t be surprised if the train skips a station or you find the doors not opening at your station, as BMRCL’s standard operating procedures (SOP) give emphasis to safety.

The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) on Thursday released its SOP for Namma Metro operations amid the raging pandemic.

One of the major decisions is to not open the entry/exit gates of metro stations that fall within containment zones. The public will just have to find the next nearest station.

Authorities have also decided not to allow cash transactions. Besides the ban on tokens, recharging smart cards at stations will not be permitted. The public can only recharge online. Passengers who do not have cards with the online recharge facility can buy new ones at the counter by making a digital payment.

The SOP also advises passengers not to place their cards on the card reader at the fare collection gates. Instead, it should be flashed near the reader by keeping a distance of 3 cm.

Only one bag per passenger will be allowed and social-distancing of two metres will have to be maintained between commuters.

As the number of passengers per train is limited to 400, entry at the stations will be closed until the crowd is cleared from the platform. If a train has already reached the maximum limit, it will skip the crowded stations and stop at the next one.

While not making the Aarogya Setu app mandatory, the metro authorities have sought to encourage passengers to install the app and show the “green colour display” on their phones. The green colour indicates that the risk of infection is low for the user.

Those with temperatures above 37 degrees Celsius and symptoms of sneezing, cough, and breathlessness will not be permitted to enter the station premises.