With Kochi metro completing two years on Monday, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is gearing up to hand over the six-km Maharaja’s College-Thykoodam stretch to Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) for commissioning in August and the 1.20-km-long Thykoodam-Petta corridor by December.
“Five of the six-k.m. Maharaja’s College-Thykoodam corridor is nearing completion and we have expedited the works to enable the KMRL to commission the stretch on August 15,” E. Sreedharan, Principal Advisor, DMRC, told The Hindu here.
The Thykoodam-Petta stretch, entrusted to the DMRC for laying the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS), will be readied by December this year itself. Mr. Sreedharan said the works are moving as per plan to meet the deadline.
Once the six-km is commissioned by December this year, the services of the Kochi metro will be available for 24 km and the ridership is expected to go up. At present, the MRTS, the first in the State, is available in the 18-km Aluva-Maharaja’s College corridor.
‘I see no role’
The targets are also part of the decision to wind up the operations of the DMRC in Kerala next year and close down the DMRC office in Kochi by March 2020. The Principal Advisor said: “I see no role for the DMRC in the Kochi metro after December 2019.”
The ‘bad experience’ the DMRC had to face in connection with Light Metro projects in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode cities and the cold shoulder to the Metroman from the LDF government are cited as the reasons for the exit from the State. However, the government has roped him in for taking a call on the rehabilitation of the Palarivattom flyover.
Moreover, the DMRC has not been engaged in laying the 1.5-km MRTS corridor from Petta to S.N. Junction at Thripunithara for extending the Kochi metro services. The KMRL is laying the phase II 11-km-long Kakkanad extension on its own.
“The KMRL has not done on the expected lines in the task they have undertaken. We could have completed it in March 2020 if it was entrusted to us,” the Principal Advisor said.
Fixed tenure
Dr. Sreedharan said the managing director of the KMRL should be a non-IAS official and should be given fixed tenure. “The post should not have been kept vacant. Neither the DMRC nor me was consulted when A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish was appointed in 2017,” he said.
