Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is also the Minister in-charge of Kochi Metro, will travel in a Kochi Metro train in the 13-km-long Aluva-Palarivattom corridor on Saturday, prior to the inauguration of the metro on June 17 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Metro officials will explain to Mr. Vijayan how the metro and allied systems operate. He will also inaugurate Kochi Metro Rail Limited’s (KMRL) solar power system at Aluva metro station. He is also expected to visit the metro’s Operation Control Centre located on the coaching depot premises at Muttom.
“The purpose of Mr. Vijayan’s inspection of the metro corridor is to personally verify the preparedness of the system prior to its launch,” says a KMRL media release.
In the meantime, the KMRL inked the Letter of Acceptance (LoA) with Aecom Consortium on Friday for the ₹741-crore Water Metro project in the Greater Kochi area.
With this, the stage is set to review the project’s Detailed Project Report, finalise specifications for ferries and allied infrastructure, and to prepare tender documents, metro sources said.
The consortium comprising AECOM India Pvt. Ltd., New-Delhi based Urban Mass Transit Company Ltd., and Zebec Marine Consultants Service Pvt. Ltd. emerged as the successful bidder as general consultant for the proposed integrated water transport project of the KMRL.
Regional Director of AECOM, the lead partner of the consortium, Sanjeev Gupta and Konain Khan, General Manager, Water Transport, Operations and Maintenance of the KMRL, signed the agreement in the presence of the metro agency’s Director (Finance) Abraham Oommen. Consortium members Ankush Malhotra from UMTC and Naval J. Oonwala from Zebac too were present on the occasion.
Kochi Water Metro is expected to connect the people residing around the Kochi backwaters to the mainland, thereby improving their livelihood and economic status.
The KMRL has initiated the process to obtain the project’s environmental clearance.
