The Kochi metro has already grabbed global headlines by appointing 23 transgenders to perform various duties.
The path-breaking initiative has won the Kochi Metro Rail Ltd (KMRL) praise from all sides as it is the first government-run enterprise to do so. Besides taking a giant step towards integrating transgenders with the mainstream, the KMRL move has helped to remove the stigma that transgenders and other sexual minorities carry with them. The better qualified among them are posted at ticket counters, while the rest are being deputed for housekeeping work at stations.
“We would like to give members of the transgender community their rightful share in different jobs at stations. There will be no discrimination between them and women workers. Society’s mindset towards them will change only by direct interaction with them. Moreover, members of the community cannot be blamed since they are born with such a biological situation,” KMRL managing director Elias George had said while announcing the decision to appoint them, from among the 530 women recruited from the Kudumbasree Mission.
Innovativeness of the metro agency has not stopped there. It has also begun installing solar panels atop the metro stations, to generate 2 MW of power. Another 2 MW will be generated from solar panels that will be fixed atop the coach depot-cum- operational control centre in Muttom, near Aluva. “We plan to generate another 4 MW power from solar panels that will be installed in 45,000 sq ft area at Muttom. By generating a total of 8 MW power, we intend to meet 40 per cent of the metro’s energy requirements,” a KMRL official said.
The braking power generated by 25 metro trains would turn out to be yet another source of energy.
The trains have been equipped with regenerative braking systems, which in turn will conserve energy generated while braking and feed it back into the grid. Up to 10% of the braking energy can thus be reused. The KMRL is also taking steps to build rainwater harvesting sumps in metro stations. “It is difficult to build them within the limited space at stations in the Aluva-Maharajas College Ground corridor. We are trying to have huge sumps at stations in the corridor ending at Tripunithura,” Mr. Elias George said.
The Kochi metro would also sport vertical gardens on 200 of its pillars, using roughly 3,000 tonnes of compost generated from municipal waste every year. Every sixth metro pillar will have a vertical garden. Advertisement boards will be placed on the others, earning revenue for KMRL. “The 3,000 tonnes of compost will be generated from eight times as much municipal waste, in adherence with the waste-to-energy concept,” a KMRL official said. A few vertical gardens have already come up on the metro corridor, with plants fixed in cloth bags. No plastic has been used.
