Major discounts for Kochi Metro’s smart card holders and commuters who park on station premises would be announced within a few weeks, said Elias George, Managing Director of Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL), who expressed his willingness to move on after five years of service in the agency.
He has also requested the government to find a successor. The State government had extended his tenure by two years in 2016, after he retired as Additional Chief Secretary-Metro Rail. His statement on fares comes in the wake of demand from different quarters to offer discounts for regular commuters and to lessen parking fee. Mr. George added that commuters would be able to travel in metro, bus and ferry using a single smart card, two years down the lane.
Speaking to media persons at his office on Tuesday, Mr. George said that the biggest challenge he faced and surmounted during the past five years was to convince people who had to surrender land and other key stakeholders of the metro agency’s ‘purity of heart’. It was also quite an effort to bring everyone under one umbrella. He assured that the (much-delayed) land acquisition in metro’s Thykoodam-Pettah reach would be completed by December.
He expressed contentment at the Union Urban Development Ministry lauding the Kochi metro as ‘world class’. Referring to the deployment of over 700 Kudumbasree personnel for house keeping, customer relations, ticketing, etc. in metro stations, he said that they were being paid salary for weekly-off day too. “The workforce comprises even engineering graduates. A total of 24 members of the transgender community too are part of the workforce.”
On metro’s international airport extension, he said that it could be done alongside the Angamaly extension. This would ensure a full-length metro corridor between Angamaly and Tripunithura.
Meets Metroman
Earlier in the day, he met Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) Principal Advisor E. Sreedharan and requested him to be KMRL’s patron, for smooth progress of metro’s extensions to Thripunithura and Kakkanad. The revised project report for Kakkanad extension has been submitted to the Centre. He credited Mr. Sreedharan and the DMRC for helping complete the metro viaduct in record time.
Consultancy plans
To a question on KMRL venturing into consultancy, Mr. George said the Kozhikode Corporation had entrusted the agency with its urban-consultancy project. “There is so far no role in the proposed light metro projects for Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.” On his future plans, the naval architect-turned-civil servant said that he intended to do academic consultancy, mostly in shipping, transportation and urban development. He would shuttle between Kochi and New Delhi where his wife Aruna Sundararajan is Union Telecom Secretary.
Two upcoming projects of the metro agency are mapping and naming of trees in the city and an initiative to tidy up Vembanad Lake.
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