Kolkata: The 6 am metro service turned out to be a total game changer for commuters. Until Monday, going to school, college or coaching classes early in the morning would mean relying on unpredictable local buses or expensive ridesharing apps. The early-morning metro services have not only saved the commuters from the trouble, they have reduced the travel time as well.“Till Saturday, it took me 90 minutes to attend the 7 am class. Today, I could cover the distance in just half an hour,” said Kaustabh Bagchi, fourth-year BCom student of Scottish Church College. “Earlier, I would take an auto to Sakuntala Park in Behala to catch the first S45 bus. The bus dropped me off at Maniktala. From there, I took another auto to Hedua, from where I would walk to my college. On Monday, in a five-minute auto ride, I was at the Tollygunge (Mahanayak Uttam Kumar) station, from where I took the 6.15 am metro to Girish Park. It was a breeze,” Kaustabh said.Fellow student from Scottish Church, Koyel Das, said: “We are very grateful to the Metro authorities for thinking of us and making life easier for hundreds of commuters who struggle hard to reach their destinations early in the morning.”“Roads might be completely empty at that hour, but reliable public transit options are scarce. Now, the first whistle of the metro at 6 am ensures a fast, punctual and highly safe journey across town. It eliminates early-morning travel anxiety, letting students and office-goers arrive fresh and focused rather than exhausted by a chaotic road commute,” said SS Kannan, CPRO, Metro Railway, which runs the city’s rapid transit network.The extension of Kolkata Metro’s operational hours from 6 am to 10.30 pm on Blue (North-South corridor) and Green (East-West Metro) lines marked a massive, welcome shift for daily commuters, especially students and young professionals managing intense schedules. “Balancing early-morning classes with late-night study sessions, coaching classes or extracurricular activities has historically been a logistical nightmare. The revised timetable effectively solves this major challenge,” said Paramita Sarkar, mother of a student at Loreto House, Park Street.“Hope the extended services are here to stay. I started depending on the special night 10.40 pm services, until it was withdrawn on Sept 3 last year. Tonight, I took the 10.40 pm train from Esplanade,” said Barun Sanyal, a Dum Dum resident.Metro Railway withdrew the special night trains on the Blue Line to facilitate installation of a rake reversal facility at Shahid Khudiram station, which has become the Blue Line’s southern terminal after Kavi Subhas station was closed from July 28 last year.
