After 1L Sun footfall, Green Line to get addl RPF men for first weekday run
Times of India | 25 August 2025
Kolkata: Metro Railway will deploy additional RPF personnel for crowd management along the Green Line on Monday, the first weekday operation of the now-integrated corridor. On Saturday, hours after East-West Metro or the Green Line started its full run from 6 pm on Friday, the corridor registered 1.3 lakh footfall. More than the footfall, it was the serpentine queues and congestion in the stations that caught everyone's attention.
On Sunday, the line recorded 1 lakh footfall.
At Howrah station, there were repeated announcements on the passenger address system (PAS) in the rakes and inside stations, urging people to use Metro Railway's official mobile app — Amar Kolkata Metro (formerly known as Metro Ride Kolkata) — so that passengers could book QR-based tickets for entry or top up their smart cards. | Gold Rates Today in Kolkata | Silver Rates Today in Kolkata"The app is available for both Android and IOS platforms. Passengers will get a 5% discount for booking tickets and recharging smart cards through the app," a senior Metro official said, indicating that the number of counters in the stations will not be increased to accommodate the rush. Instead, passengers would be driven toward technology available on their smartphones. This was the only solution to the carrier's existing manpower crunch, sources said.
KMRC managing director Anuj Mittal said, "I request people of Kolkata to own the Green Line, keep it clean and use Amar Metro App for buying tickets. Avoid crowding at the counters.
"At Howrah Maidan station, RPF and other personnel were seen showing people how to use the automatic vending machines so that they didn't have to queue up for tickets on Sunday morning. Operations started at 9 am and continued till 9.47 pm, with 104 services (52 in each direction). Services were available at 15-minute intervals.
"The queues are reducing the comfort offered by the new metro operations. I have been standing here to buy a ticket for the last half an hour. The queue doesn't seem to be moving," Swati Banerjee, a CIT Road resident, who ventured out for a metro ride for her first under-river experience, rued, waiting at the booking counter at Sealdah station. "I have been trying to travel on the Esplanade-Howrah Maidan stretch ever since the Prime Minister flagged it off last March. I could finally make it now when the two sections were linked," the teacher, who works in a govt school at Barasat, said. The Esplanade-Sealdah section, so far, remained shut on Sundays, even as the Esplanade-Howrah Maidan section was operational.
"We made repeated campaigns recently to dissuade riders from buying tickets from counters. Avoiding counters not only helps them avail discounts, they can also get four tickets at a time, avoid unnecessary wait, and hop on to train as they enter station," an official added.