With the Kochi Water Metro ferries beginning to operate on the High Court-Bolgatty Island route a fortnight ago, it is estimated that the patronage for the ferries that began operating in April-end would cross the 10 lakh mark within a week.
A total of 10 ferries were hitherto taking turns in operating on High Court-Vypeen and Vyttila-Kakkanad routes. Their patronage hovered at approximately 2,500 during weekdays and between 4,000 to 5,000 during weekends when there was more inflow of tourists, mainly from the hugely popular Marine Drive walkway.
They find the ₹20 trip in the High Court-Vypeen corridor in an air-conditioned electric-hybrid ferry an enchanting and value-for-money proposition as compared to the much costlier, regular backwater cruises in tourist boats, which, however, cover longer distances through the backwaters, official sources said.
While Water Metro ferries operate on the route every 20 minutes and in the Vyttila-Kakkanad corridor approximately every 30 minutes, they operate 10 trips each day to Bolgatty Island. This is aimed at catering for more commuters and tourists. The patronage on the Kakkanad route is expected to improve when Civil Line Road is barricaded later this year to build the Kochi metro’s 11.20-km Kakkanad extension.
In addition, efforts are on to extend operations from High Court to Chittoor and Eloor, where terminals had been readied earlier this year, from November. With traffic snarls getting worse in the city and suburban towns, commuters from Eloor, Kumbalam, and many other areas have been seeking speedy extension of the service to their localities.
This will be followed by ferries operating on the High Court-Fort Kochi route where demand from commuters and tourists for water transport is very high. The Water Metro authorities had cited the Cochin Shipyard’s inordinate delay in rolling out ferries and to install an extended marine platform into the sea and floating pontoons in Fort Kochi as reasons for the delay in operationalising the route.
The shipyard had committed to deliver a total of twenty-three 100-passenger ferries in the first phase of the project. Faced with the alleged delay in procuring components, the revised deadline of October has been further extended to February.
After delay in getting clearance from the German lending agency to invite tenders for many terminals — including the critical one at Mattancherry, Kochi Water Metro Limited (KWML) had invited tenders for their construction in September. The terminals are expected to be completed within a year, the sources added.
