Metro Railway has increased the number of trains and extended the timings between Joka and Majerhat on the Purple Line.
The corridor, which aims to connect Joka and Esplanade, is now functional on an 8km stretch between Joka and Majerhat.
Of all the operational Metro corridors in and around the city, the Joka-Majerhat link has the least number of trains and the lowest passenger count.
Till May 4, the section had only 18 trains. The first and last trains left at 8.30am and 3.35pm, respectively. The number of daily services was increased to 40 from May 5. From Tuesday, the number was further raised to 62.
The first train now leaves Majerhat at 7.57am and Joka at 8am. The last trains from Joka and Majerhat leave at 8pm.
The interval between two trains has now come down to 24 minutes from around an hour a month ago.
There will still be no services on Saturdays and Sundays.
“The passengers had been demanding more trains and longer service hours for some time now,” said a Metro official.
The truncated Joka-Taratala stretch has been operational since the beginning of 2023. At the start, there were just six trains from morning to afternoon, and the footfall remained very low. The Taratala-Majerhat link was opened on March 6, 2024.
The number of trains increased slightly, and so did the passenger count. The average daily passenger count is now more than 500, a Metro official said.
“With more trains, we expect it to go up,” he said.
“With Majerhat on the Metro map, many passengers can access the Majerhat suburban railway station on the Sealdah-Budge Budge line. The Rabindra Sarobar railway station is also not far away from Majerhat. The proximity to suburban railway stations is one of the reasons for the demand for more services,” said a Metro official.
Sources in the carrier said around 20 additional staff members have been posted at different stations along the functional section of the Purple Line in anticipation of a significant rise in the passenger count.
Passengers welcomed the decision to increase the number of trains.
“It was long due. Ending the services early in the evening did not make any sense,” said Maitreyee Ghosh, who lives at a high-rise near Thakurpukur Bazar. She takes her daughter to a co-educational school on Diamond Harbour Road near Taratala Metro station.
The New Garia-Ruby section, the only functional stretch of the upcoming New Garia-Airport corridor (Orange Line), has 74 trains every weekday, at an interval of 20 minutes.
Metro sources say around 2,000 passengers take the Orange Line every day. The Kavi Subhash (New Garia) station is an interface between the Orange Line and the Blue Line, or the north-south corridor between New Garia and Dakshineswar, the city’s most populous Metro route.
The north-south corridor and the East-West Metro (Green Line) meet at Esplanade. That means, a passenger can effectively buy a ticket at Howrah Maidan (one of the terminal stations of East-West Metro) and reach Ruby (Hemanta Mukherjee station) on Metro by switching a couple of trains.
Such a seamless interface is not available for the Purple Line passengers.
The 14km Joka-Esplanade corridor, delayed for years because of land issues, has finally picked up speed. The fate of the proposed Kidderpore station is in jeopardy because the state government has yet to sanction work inside the Alipore police lines compound.