Impressing upon the Central government that despite staggered timings, staff strength at 33 percent in government offices, the West Bengal transport services are heavily strained and so treating it as a “very special case”, the metro train services may be allowed in Kolkata.
The Centre on Monday issued guidelines for the second for the second of a three-phase plan amied at lifting restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), announcing that educational institutions, Metro rail services and large gatherings will continue to remain banned.
“We have introduced staggered timings, reduced the daily attendance in government offices to 33% and made appeal to private sectors to undertake similar measures. Still we are not able to cope with the tremendous pressure on the transport system for the intra-city movement,” the Bengal government wrote in its letter to the ministry of home affairs.
It noted that the worst sufferers in the present scenario are the people associated with essential services like medical and health staff, police personnel, among others.
“Approach you with a request to kindly give MHA’s consent for relaxing the norms for Kolkata for running a bare minimum number of Metro rail just to carry these personnel as a very special case,” the government said further.
The Bengal government further said that it had a meeting with Metro authorities and underlined that the services will be used only for meeting needs for providing essential services to the citizens. It will also help manage the physical distancing norms better, it said.
