On the first anniversary of its commercial operations, Kochi metro has some encouraging figures to look at — its trains carried 1.30 crore passengers, reaping in ₹42 crore towards ticketing revenue.
Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) will extend an anniversary gift to commuters as a token of its gratitude for their continuing patronage by offering them free rides on Tuesday. The offer coincides with the completion of the first anniversary of commercial services.
Though the metro was launched on June 17 last year, commercial operations got under way only a couple of days later. The free ride comes on top of another running offer to secure the Kochi-One prepaid card, brought out by KMRL in association with Axis Bank, which originally costs ₹237, for a mere ₹12 till the end of this month.
Out of ₹237, the cost of the card accounts for ₹150, annual fee of ₹75 towards and a recharge amount of ₹12. Under the present offer, ₹225 will be refunded within a week. So far, 14,000 cards had been sold and the figure is likely to exceed 30,000 by the end of this month with the cashback offer in vogue.
To mark the first anniversary, all 519 KMRL employees started planting saplings at the Muttom yard on Monday. They will groom the saplings on their own during holidays and their free time.
Actor’s maiden trip
Actor Jayasurya undertook his maiden trip on the metro with transgenders on Monday. He boarded the metro train along with transgenders at Edappally station at 11.30 a.m. and alighted at Maharaja’s College station. Transgenders among the metro staff also accompanied the actor.
The actor interacted with them and hailed the KMRL initiative as one that enhanced the confidence of the transgender community. Ranjith Sankar, the director of his latest movie Njan Marikutty, in which the actor has portrayed a transgender, accompanied him.