Kozhikode city may have to wait for some more time to know if it will get a metro rail service or not.
Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL), which has been tasked with a study on the proposal, is yet to complete the job. Official sources in Kochi told The Hindu on Wednesday that the work on a comprehensive mobility report (CMP) for Kozhikode was not yet over. The CMP takes into view the land use pattern in a city to prepare a strategy for the investments in the short, medium and long term to improve the mobility and accessibility of its residents. The sources, however, pointed out that inception reports on the traffic pattern and the transport requirements for the city and various surveys for the project had been completed.
This comes against media reports saying that the State government was going slow on the metro rail projects proposed for Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode. It has been claimed that Urban Mass Transit Company Limited, an urban transport consultancy company, which was asked by KMRL to conduct a feasibility study on the proposal, was not able to meet the deadline of March 31. These reports quoted officials, who claimed that the government was dilly-dallying on the project for the two cities also because of the lack of profitability of the Kochi metro.
Another section of officials believe that the government’s preference for the semi-high speed SilverLine project was delaying the metro rail’s prospects.
A KMRL official said a stakeholders’ meeting would be held for the Thiruvananthapuram project by this month-end. It is learnt that the consultancy firm has submitted an interim report to KMRL. The government had taken the decision to prepare a CMP to find out a suitable metro rail service for the two cities in November last. KMRL Managing Director Loknath Behara had sought the help of Mayors of both the cities for the completion of the project.
The number of passengers in a city is a major factor determining the suitable metro rail service there. There are models such as Metro Neo and Metro Lite. According to experts, a normal metro rail service is expected to cost around ₹200 crore a km, Metro Neo ₹150 crore and Metro Lite ₹60 crore.
