Tuesday will mark the beginning of India’s first water metro, which will use hybrid-powered boats to connect 10 small islands near Kochi.
Commuters and tourists will benefit from the Rs 1,137 crore project, which is supported by the Kerala government and the German funding organization KFW. According to Pinarayi Vijayan, chief minister of Kerala, the water metro provides evidence that urban transportation can be environmentally benign. The Kochi One App may be used to digitally reserve tickets, which range in price from Rs 20 to Rs 40.
Boats of the Kochi Water Metro (KWM) would traverse 38 terminals in its initial stage while operating on a hybrid fuel mode of Titanite Spinel batteries and diesel. In the beginning, KWM service will run between the High Court-Vypin and Vyttila-Kakkanad terminals. According to Vijayan, travelers may go to Vypin Terminal from High Court Terminal in about 20 minutes. Using the Water Metro, it takes 25 minutes to get from Vyttila to Kakkanad.
KWM, which connects rail, road, and water, will be among the first integrated transport systems in the nation. A person can ride on the Kochi Metro Rail and Kochi Water Metro with the Kochi One Card. There will be special passes for Rs 180 that can be used for 12 trips, monthly passes for Rs 600 that can be used for 50 excursions, and quarterly passes for Rs 1500 that can be used for 150 trips.
100 people can fit on each boat, which has 50 seats. 110 life jackets and 21 security cameras will be on the boat. The Cochin Shipyard produces air-conditioned boats with a metro train design.
The first Vande Bharat Express in Kerala will be launched between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod as part of PM Modi‘s two-day tour of the state. He will also dedicate other projects totaling more than Rs. 3,200 crores.
The 11 districts covered by the Kerala Vande Bharat train are Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Kasargod. The cost of the 586-kilometer train is between Rs 435 and Rs 1,590 for chair cars and Rs 820 and Rs 2,880 for executive chair car classes. In contrast to Rajdhani, which takes approximately 8 hours and 59 minutes to travel the same distance from Trivandrum Central to Kasaragod, Vande Bharat will reach its destination in Kasaragod in 8.05 hours.
The redevelopment of the railway stations in Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, and Varkala Sivagiri, the renaming and development of the stations in Nemon and Kochuveli, and an increase in the sectional speed of the Thiruvananthapuram-Shoranur section are among the additional projects that Modi will lay the cornerstone for. He will also lay the cornerstone for Thiruvananthapuram’s Digital Science Park.
