PM Modi to inaugurate India's first water metro in Kochi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off on Tuesday India’s first water metro that will connect 10 small islands around Kochi with boats running on hybrid power.

The Rs. 1,137 crore project, funded by German funding agency KFW and the Kerala government, will provide a cheap mode of transport for commuters and tourists. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said the water metro proves that urban transport can be environment friendly. Tickets will cost between Rs. 20 and Rs. 40 and can be booked digitally through Kochi One App.

Running on a hybrid fuel mode of Titanite Spinel batteries and diesel, boats of the Kochi Water Metro (KWM) will cover 38 terminals in its initial stage. KWM service will initially run between the High Court-Vypin terminals and Vyttila-Kakkanad terminals. Vijayan has said commuters will be able to reach Vypin Terminal from High Court Terminal in less than 20 minutes. Kakkanad can be reached within 25 minutes from Vyttila via Water Metro.

KWM will be one of the first integrated transport systems in the country, connecting rail, road and water. Using the Kochi One Card, a person can travel on both Kochi Metro Rail and Kochi Water Metro. There will be special passes of Rs. 180 that can cover 12 trips, monthly passes of 50 trips for Rs. 600 and quarterly passes of 150 trips for Rs. 1,500.

Each boat has 50 seats and it can carry 100 passengers. A boat will have 21 security cameras and 110 lifejackets. The air-conditioned boats, modelled in the shape of Metro trains, are manufactured at Cochin Shipyard.

Modi, as part of his two-day visit to the state, will flag off on Tuesday Kerala’s first Vande Bharat Express between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod and inaugurate multiple projects worth more than Rs. 3,200 crore.

The Kerala Vande Bharat train will cover 11 districts, including Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Kasargod. The fare for the 586-km train is between Rs 435 to Rs 1,590 for chair car and Rs 820 to Rs 2,880 for executive chair car classes. Vande Bharat will complete the journey from Trivandrum Central to Kasaragod in 8.05 hours while Rajdhani takes around 8 hours and 59 minutes to cover the same distance.

The other projects that Modi will lay foundation stone for include the redevelopment of Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, and Varkala Sivagiri railway stations; the renaming and development of Nemon and Kochuveli stations and increasing of sectional speed of Thiruvananthapuram-Shoranur section. He will lay the foundation stone for a Digital Science Park in Thiruvananthapuram.

BS