Air Pollution: Delhi Metro to run 40 more trains on all routes from Delhi

New Delhi: Given the declining quality of the air and the implementation of GRAP-II, the Delhi Metro declared on Tuesday that it will begin operating 40 extra train runs on weekdays (Monday through Friday) throughout its network on Wednesday.

"As part of the various measures being adopted by the Delhi government to combat pollution under GRAP-II stage, DMRC will be running 40 additional train trips on weekdays (Mon-Fri) across its network starting from tomorrow," said the DMRC spokesperson.

“This has been planned to intensify the use of public transport among passengers across Delhi-NCR. Usually, over 4,300 trips are performed by Delhi Metro trains every day,” he said.

Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) stage-II has been invoked in Delhi and its surrounding areas as air quality dipped into the "very poor" category, owing to unfavourable meteorological and climate conditions, said the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM).

It is said to strictly implement the schedule for regulated operations of DG sets across all sectors in the NCR including industrial, commercial, residential offices etc. It is further said to augment CNG/electric bus and metro services by inducting additional fleets and increasing the frequency of service.

It said that Resident Welfare Associations have been directed to necessarily provide electric heaters to security staff to avoid open bio-mass and MSW burning during winters.

With inputs from IANS