Kerala plans to extend Kochi metro coverage

Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy has announced the state's intent to extend the Kochi Metro Rail service to Nedumbassery, Kakkanad and Mattanchery. For this, it has assigned Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to conduct the study and finalise the report in the next six months.

Inaugurating the piling work at Edappilly, he said the ongoing work on four FOBs at Edappilly, Palarivattam, Vyttilla and Kundanoor would commence soon in order to reduce the traffic congestion in Kochi.

Speaking at the event, he said they was actively considering to develop monorail projects across various locations in the state and added the Cabinet had already granted administrative sanction to the mono rail projects in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.

The DMRC had been entrusted with the works of the Rs 5,000-crore monorail project and the formal agreement will be inked next week.

In March, the government had decided to entrust the construction of the project with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. The cost of the project was revised to Rs 5,181 crore from Rs 2,239 crore in 2005. 

The contribution from the Union government would be 20.26 per cent of the total project cost, which works out to be Rs 1,002.23 crore.