Pandals in the vicinity of Metro stations witnessed a surge in the number of visitors compared with 2020 and 2021 as the carrier resumed nightlong Puja service after two Covid-scarred years.
Kalighat and Dum Dum stations were packed to the hilt. Sovabazar and Belgachhia were also crowded throughout the day and night. People jostled for space inside the trains approaching and leaving the stations.
Hundreds of thousands of pandal-hoppers opt for Metro travel. Many of them come from districts. They take a local train to Sealdah, Dum Dum, Ballygunge or any other suburban station and then take the Metro. The local train services were also curtailed because of Covid during 2020 and 2021.
In 2019, Metro Railway had ferried around 46 lakh passengers between Panchami and Dashami. On Sashthi alone, the passenger count was a record 9.22 lakh. This year, the number was over 35 lakh between Panchami and Navami.
Night-long trains were suspended during the past two years as part of the Covid curbs.
In keeping with the pre-Covid trend, the Puja days this year saw more tokens sold than smart cards used.
Around 4pm on Dashami, Rabindra Sarobar Metro station had a steady stream of people coming out. The bulk of them were headed to Mudiali and Shibmandir pandals. Cops posted at Kalighat station got frequently asked about the roads to 66 Pally, Ballygunge Cultural and other nearby pujas.
“The footfall at pandals near the Metro stations has increased significantly compared with the past two years,” said an officer in the traffic department
“Dum Dum and Kalighat have been the most crowded stations. But other stations like Sovabazar, MG Road and Central have also seen very high footfall. Most passengers at MG Road and Central stations were headed to pujas like Mohammad Ali Park and College Square. Similarly, Sreebhumi and Tarun Dal visitors came via Dum Dum,” said the officer.
Kolkata police and the Metro authorities have coordinated to control the crowd at Metro stations.
The organisers of several pujas said the crowd did not thin even in the early hours. “Last couple of years, the 3am crowd would not be like the usual pre-Covid Puja days. But not this year. Our volunteers did not get any breather even in the early hours,” said an organiser of Mudiali Club.
Kalighat, the nearest Metro station to several big-ticket pujas like Suruchi Sangha, Chetla Agrani, Deshapriya Park, Tridhara, Badamtala, Ekdalia and Singhi Park, was the most crowded station on most Puja days.
Serpentine queues at ticket counters were a constant.
Scores of policemen and Metro personnel were deployed across the station for crowd control. The authorities barricaded the platform and mezzanine floors to tackle the crowd.
But every time a train entered the station, madness descended on the platform. Each compartment of an incoming train was packed beyond capacity but that hardly prevented hundreds from fighting their way in as soon as the gates opened.