Kochi Metro gets five more stations, to be operational till Thaikoodam

The stretch from Maharajas College to Thaikoodam will help people to avoid traffic jams on roads and to quickly cover some of the important points in the city.

news Transport

With Kochi Metro extending its services to Thaikoodam from Maharajas College, residents of Kochi can now pass swiftly through some of the bottleneck areas in the city avoiding the horrible traffic jams.

At a function held at Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday inaugurated the five new stations of Kochi Metro – Ernakulam South, Kadavanthra, Elamkulam, Vytilla and Thaikoodam. With this, the 18 kilometre functioning stretch of Kochi Metro has been extended to a total of 23 km.

The extended metro stretch was part of the first phase of Kochi Metro. In the full stretch of Aluva to Petta in the first phase, only Aluva to Maharajas College had become functional when the metro services started. Thaikoodam, till which metro has become functional now, is the stop before Petta and only Petta is yet to become functional in the first phase.

The stretch from Maharajas College to Thaikoodam will help people to avoid traffic jams on roads and to quickly cover some of the important points in the city. It includes major transportation points like Ernakulam Junction Railway station, Kerala RTC’s bus stand in the city and the Vytilla Mobility Hub. The inauguration of the stretch is considered important by the Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) since there is a possibility of increasing the metro ridership as the stations are located closed to the above-mentioned transit points.

Speaking at the function, the CM said, “Around 40,000 people use metro daily on the 18km stretch from Aluva to Maharajas College. With five new stations also being inaugurated, the number of passengers will increase exponentially.”

Kochi Metro completed two years of service last June, but it has not been successful in reaching the projected ridership, which is 2.75 lakh users per day.

Read: Kochi Metro completes 2 years but ridership still far from projected numbers

To woo more people, the Kochi Metro has announced discounts on fares in connection with Onam. “Passengers will be given 50% discount in ticket charges from Wednesday till September 18 for travelling from Aluva to Thaikoodam stretch,” said KMRL Managing Director Mohammed Hanish. The parking charges for vehicles in metro station premises have also been waived off till September 25.

‘No discrepancies in works will be tolerated’

Throwing a word of caution to the upcoming works of KMRL like the Water Metro project, CM Pinarayi said that no discrepancies of any kind in the works will be tolerated. He said this after mentioning the controversy involving the multi-crore Palarivattom flyover which had to be closed down within two years after construction as major cracks appeared on the structure.

“There will not be any compromises in the quality of work. There will be strict monitoring of the works and if at all there happens to be something amiss, strict action will be taken against the persons concerned,” said the chief minister.

He also added that the government’s money is people’s money and that it cannot be taken by anyone for their private deposits.

Interestingly, Mohammed Hanish who is the managing director of KMRL, was the MD of Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala Ltd (RBDCK) while Palarivattom flyover was being constructed. RBDCK was in charge of construction of the project. When the controversy broke out, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) had probed the involvement of RBDCK in the scam. Recently on Friday, VACB arrested an assistant general manager of RBDCK, associated with the Palarivattom flyover scam.

Also read:

How a Rs 48 crore flyover in Kochi got shut down just two years after construction

Kochi’s infamous pothole-ridden roads: A danger to citizens and vehicles