Four years after its work was started, the 13 km stretch of the Kochi metro was flagged off by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on Saturday morning. Mr. Modi was accompanied by Governor of Kerala P. Sathasivam, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Venkaiah Naidu and President of Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala, Kummanam Rajasekharan among others.
The metro, constructed in a record time, had been in news lately for its many ‘firsts’. Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) had recruited 23 persons from the transgender community to take care of counters and to do house-keeping tasks in stations, thus becoming the “first government-owned company in India to formally appoint transgender people,” according to its Managing Director, Elias George.
KMRL had also recruited about 500 women workers from the Kudumbasree Mission with the intention of providing opportunities for self-sufficiency.
According to Mr.George, the metro will also be the first in India to use solar power to meet a quarter of its power needs in the immediate future. It has already begun installing solar panels atop the stations, to generate 2 MW of power. Another 2 MW of power will be generated from solar panels that will be fixed atop the coach depot-cum-operational control centre at Muttom. Yet another 4 MW of power will be generated from solar panels that would be installed in a 45,000 sq.ft area at Muttom.