DMRC fines 2,214 passengers in 9 days for not wearing masks

Two weeks after resuming services — after a pause of five-and-a-half months — the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has fined more than 2,000 people for not wearing masks in the station premises and inside trains.

According to DMRC data, from September 11 — when the rail corporation started imposing fines for mask violations — till September 20, at least 2,214 commuters had been fined for not wearing masks.

Apart from this,DMRC teams had counselled, but not fined, more than 5,000 people, in an attempt to ensure that the new travel guidelines are followed.

Four days after its graded resumption of services, the DMRC had formed a special flying squad for each of its nine operational corridors to ensure that commuters wear masks inside the Metro network at all times and abide by social distancing norms.

These teams move in and out of trains and stations in the lines assigned to them and if any passenger is found to be violating the rules, they counsel them. If a commuter still refuses to fall in line and wear a mask, then they fined under Section 59 of Delhi Metro’s Operations and Maintenance Act.

Under this section, violators can be imposed a fine of R200 for creating public nuisance.

Records show that the most number of fines were issued on the Yellow Line (Samaypur Badli-Huda City Centre), where as many as 724 commuters were penalised for not wearing or improperly wearing masks in stations and inside trains.

This was followed by the Violet Line (Kashmere Gate-Raja Nahar Singh Ballabhgarh), where 580 fines were issued and the Blue Line (Dwarka Sec-21 to Noida Electronic City/Vaishali) where 545 people were challaned.

In the Red Line, connecting Rithala and Shaheed Sthal New Bus Adda, the DMRC has so far issued 134 challans for mask violations, while on the Magenta Line (Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden) and Pink Line (Majlis Park to Shiv Vihar) 109 and 79 fines were issued, respectively.

On the Green Line (Kirti Nagar/Inderlok -Brigadier Hoshiar Singh Bahadurgarh) 26 commuters were fined and on the Grey Line (Dwarka-Najafgarh) 17 people were fined. Because of the low ridership on the Airport Express Line, no fines were issued on the corridor.

“DMRC’s objective is primarily to advise and counsel erring passengers to follow laid down norms for everyone’s safety and this is being done with a positive attitude rather than to punish people. So far, DMRC has counselled around 5,000 passengers in the 10-day drive undertaken so far. The overall behaviour of passengers have been found praiseworthy in terms of following new norms of travel due to the pandemic,” DMRC said in an email response to Hindustan Times.

The rail corporation said that fines were being issued only in limited cases, where passengers were not heeding to counselling and creating nuisance even after being called out for not wearing masks properly.

The Metro has also gone cashless in its operations to control the spread of the infection. DMRC data shows that since tokens have been discontinued temporarily in the system, between September 7 and September 20, on an average around 9,277 smart cards are being issued daily.

The Delhi Metro resumed services on September 7 in a graded manner after being forced shut on March 22 to control the spread of Covid-19. From September 12, all the corridors of the Metro have been fully functional, with the corporation continuing with crowd-control measures and social distancing inside its network.

Sumitra Srivastava, a regular Metro user, who travels from Dwarka to Noida, said that it was important to create a deterrence among people so that they wear masks for their own safety and for the safety of fellow passengers.

“There are so many people who pull down their masks once they get into trains thinking no one is watching them now. You might be fit and healthy, but travelling in a mass transit system you have to be considerate towards other passengers too. In a city like Delhi, fining people is the only way to get people to follow rules,” said Srivastava.