EW Metro recorded new passenger-count record on February 11

KOLKATA: East-West Metro on Saturday set another record. The passenger count in the ‘Green Line’ of Kolkata Metro touched 66,000. Of course, the remarkable growth in passenger count was thanks to the 46th International Kolkata Book Fair.


Over the last week, footfalls in this metro corridor have been constantly increasing as reaching Book Fair has become easy by Metro. Not only that, returning home from the Mela ground was not a problem as Metro was available till 10 pm even on Sundays.


Kaushik Mitra, chief public relations officer, Metro Railway said, “To facilitate smooth transit to this Book Fair, we introduced the Sunday Services for the first time in East-West Corridor only for book lovers of Kolkata and the suburbs.”


In order to make this Book Fair a special one, Kolkata Metro authorities took all possible measures including additional ticket counters at Sealdah, Central Park, and Karunamoyee to cater to the extra rush. An adequate number of tokens and Smart Cards were also made available at counters to handle the sudden surges in demand. Security arrangements were also tightened at these three stations to manage the rush. Additional staff was deployed for the benefit of the commuters.


As a result, footfalls in Green Line increased manifold since January 31. Saturday's passenger count was 66,000, an all-time high in this Corridor. Sealdah as usual was the busiest station recording 24883 footfalls. Karunamoyee and Salt Lake Sector V witnessed 20319 and 6830 footfalls.