Chennai: In an advance New Year’s gift to people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to flag off the country’s first ever fully-automated driverless train service on the Magenta Line of Delhi Metro on 28 December, the DMRC said on Thursday.

The commercial operation of these new-generation trains, set to be a major technological feat, will begin after the event, a senior Delhi Metro official said.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be flagging off the country”s first ever fully-automated driverless train service on the 37 km-Magenta Line (Janakpuri West to Botanical Garden) and will also be launching the fully operational National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) for travel on the 23-km Airport Express Line (New Delhi to Dwarka Sector 21) on 28 December, 2020,” the DMRC said in a statement.

Both the events, the flagging-off of the driverless train as well as the launch of NCMC on the Airport Express Line, will be hosted via videoconferencing, a senior DMRC official said.

“After the launch, it will be the first time when commuters will be able to use NCMC on any corridor of the Delhi Metro,” he said.

Prime Minister Modi in March 2019 had launched the indigenously-developed NCMC to enable people to pay multiple kinds of transport charges, including using Metro and bus services across the country.

Dubbed as ’One Nation One Card’, the inter-operable transport card allows the holders to also pay for their bus travel, toll taxes, parking charges, retail shopping and even withdraw money.

This is the first major event of Delhi Metro in 2020 which saw an unprecedented lockdown in the earlier months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Delhi Metro had resumed services with curtailed operation on the Yellow Line from 7 September after being closed for over five months.