PM Modi to flag off India’s first water metro in Kochi & Kerala’s first Vande Bharat train today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a two-day visit to Kerala will inaugurate projects worth more than Rs 3,200 crore in the state today.

He will flag off Kerala’s first Vande Bharat Express train between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod today. The Prime Minister will also inaugurate the Kochi Water Metro, a one of its kind project that would connect 10 islands around Kochi through battery-operated electric hybrid boats for seamless connectivity with the city.

The Vande Bharat express train will cover eleven districts including Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Pathanamthitta, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, and Kasargod. The train’s operations to the public will start on April 26 on the Kasaragod-Thiruvananthapuram route and on April 28 on the Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod route.

PM Modi kicked off his trip to Kerala with a mega roadshow in Kochi on Monday evening during which he surprised his supporters by getting out of his car starting the roadshow on foot, just days after a letter threatening a suicide bomb attack on him put the Kerala police and central agencies on alert.

Dressed in traditional Kerala attire, the Prime Minister was seen waving to the people on both sides of the road and on top buildings along the route. There was tight security along the two-kilometre route after the threat letter.

The letter in Malayalam, allegedly written by a Kochi resident, was received at the office of BJP state president K Surendran who in turn had handed it over to the police earlier this month.

On Monday, PM Modi also met the top priests of various churches in Kerala, giving a push to the BJP’s efforts to reach out to the influential minority community in the southern state ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.