nding months of uncertainty, test track at Kochi Metro’s coach-maintenance yard is getting ready to receive the first lot of coaches that are expected to arrive here on December 13.
Critical works at the yard are fast progressing, under the supervision of DMRC officials. This is because any delay in readying the track would result in coaches that arrive here by road from Alstom’s factory in Andhra Pradesh remaining in trailer lorries, metro sources said.
Work on metro’s operational control centre and other amenities in the yard are expected to follow suit.
Different type of trial runs of metro trains would commence in February 2016 in the Muttom-Palarivattom stretch, following which this would be extended to Aluva and later to Maharaja’s College Ground. The superstructure of all the 16 stations in the corridor will be ready by then, while finishing works and value additions will be done simultaneous with trial run.
The Commissioner for Railway Safety is expected to inspect the Aluva-Maharaja’s College Ground corridor by mid-2016 and metro’s commercial operations would in all probability commence in September, the sources said.
Work on the metro viaduct in the 18-km-long corridor is expected to be completed by December, as per the revised schedule, following which rail-laying and works like signalling and telecommunication will be done. Rail-laying work is underway in and around Kalamassery.
Workers on holiday
In the meantime, one-fourth of the workforce who were engaged in metro’s civil works are learnt to have left for their native places in northern and eastern India, for the Diwali season. “This leaves us with 3,500 of the total 4,600 personnel. Contractors have deployed workers in most sites where civil works are pending,” sources said.
While asserting that every effort will be made to commission the metro by the initial deadline of June 2016, DMRC’s Principal Advisor E. Sreedharan had stated a few months ago that the project lost 120 days due to strikes and hartals.
Critical works at the yard are fast progressing, under the supervision of DMRC officials.
