Delhi Metro’s revenues hit by curbs, lockdowns

NEW DELHI: Months of closures due to the two Covid-19 lockdowns and multiple restrictions have left the Delhi Metro’s finances in bad shape, with revenue streams running dry and losses mounting, showed documents seen by HT.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s (DMRC) incurred losses of ₹1,784.87 crore in the 2020-21 fiscal, with operations either curbed or stopped because of Covid-19, documents show.

The Delhi Metro was shut for over five months last year during the nationwide lockdown, and has been closed again for the past two weeks, as part of the state government’s measures to arrest the rapid spread of the infection. The lockdown, which came into effect on April 20, initially exempted some groups and allowed them to use the Delhi Metro. But this changed May 10 onwards, as the state tightened restrictions.

“There has already been a significant impact on DMRC’S revenues, and as long as the pandemic and associated travel norms are in place, losses are likely to remain or even increase with the passage of time. However, as a public service system, we are also committed to the cause of stopping the spread of the disease and will always extend all possible cooperation in this regard,” said Anuj Dayal, executive director (corporate communication), DMRC.

Senior Metro officials said even though operations resumed after five-and-a-half months of complete shutdown — from March 22 to September 7 — last year, services were restricted to ensure Covid-appropriate behaviour. After the Metro restarted, the passenger capacity of each coach was reduced from 300350 to just 50. To ensure that the trains are sanitised after each trip, the waiting time on each route also increased from an average of three to six minutes earlier to 15 minutes.

Revenue records show that in the 2020-2021 fiscal, DMRC’S revenue from traffic operations, which includes income from tickets, feeder bus services and rentals, and other services, fell sharply to ₹895.88 crore, from ₹3,897.29 crore in 2019-2020. Similarly, in 2018-19, their income from operational and non-operational sources was ₹3,582.80 crore.

The Metro body’s books also show that in 2020-21, the agency ran into deficits of ₹1,784.87 crore, as against a surplus of ₹758.01 crore in 2019-20. In 2018-19, DMRC recorded a surplus of ₹1,027 crore.

Apart from these pandemicinduced losses, the Delhi Metro has also been repaying ₹808.70 crore of loans and ₹433.85 as interest to the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which helped the Metro fund expansion projects. Officials said the DMRC is in talks with the central government to find ways to ensure payments towards this loan does not suffer.

Senior Metro officials said the transport body’s incomes have not been near pre-pandemic levels for nearly 14 months. “Prior to the lockdown in March last year, nearly ₹10 crore used to be the average revenue per day both from ticketing and nonticketing avenues. The Delhi Metro was operational from September last year till early May this year. However, even during this period, pre-pandemic levels of revenues could not be generated because of the protocols in place to restrict the spread of the disease,” Dayal said.

When the Metro resumed operations in September last year, the number of passenger journeys went down to 619,242, as opposed to 5,452,367 in the same period in 2019. By March this year, the number of passenger journeys finally started picking up and reached 2,680,358, but this was still nearly half of the 4,392,823 journeys the Delhi Metro made in March 2019.

Metro officials said while letters were written early this year to the central and Delhi governments asking for financial assistance, the revenue collected by operations are pumped back into the system for operations and maintenance of the system and of fixed assets such as office buildings, stations etc.