Covid-19: Is it time to let metro rail services restart across India?

Ever since India and the world was faced with the Coronavirus pandemic, lockdowns have been imposed on large parts of the world and of course India for different periods of time. Governments across the world continue to grapple with questions surrounding the spread of Covid-19.

Every government is faced with the dilemma of balancing the needs of the economy with the need to control the spread of the infection. As a result, large parts of our cities continue to resemble pale shadows of their former, bustling selves. Educational institutions remain shut, companies continue to encourage employees to work from home and public transport services like metro trains in our cities remain shut too.

The shutting down of metro services in urban areas like Delhi-NCR have not only affected the population which needs to travel within cities ever since lockdowns ended but also affected the finances of corporations running these services. We have recently seen some debate about the need to restart metro services in Delhi and there is hope that the Union govt may allow them to function at some level starting September.

Jyoti Mukul joins this podcast to discuss this in more detail.