. Kochi Metro stakeholders must work in such a way that the trial run of metro trains commences from March 2016 in the Muttom-Palarivattom corridor, DMRC’s Principal Adviser E. Sreedharan said in his Onam message to the metro agency’s staff here on Wednesday.
The trial run would subsequently be extended to Aluva and Maharaja’s College Ground. While stating that time was running out for the project, he called upon them to work hard to adhere to the June 2016 target fixed for commissioning the metro in the 18-km-long Aluva-Maharajas College Ground corridor (phase 1-A). Fears of the metro skipping the target arose following delay in land acquisition and a slew of agitations by regional labour unions and quarry owners.
The metro’s phase 1-B would be extended by another seven kilometres, touching Ernakulam Junction railway station, Vyttila and ending at Pettah, possibly by mid-2017. The initial plan was to have the metro up to Pettah, a total distance of 25 km. This was cut short because of inordinate delay in land acquisition. Currently, moves are afoot to complete the Vyttila Kunnara park-Tripunitura reach by end 2017.
