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.
