Kolkata Metro has February 2018 date with advanced Chinese trains

LUCKNOW, INDIA - SEPTEMBER 5: Lucknow Metro near Alambagh area which was inaugurated by Central Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at Transport Nagar Metro Depot on September 5, 2017 in Lucknow, India. The 8.5-km 'Priority Corridor' from Transport Nagar to Charbagh, which is part of the Phase-1 of the project, will be operational for the public from 6 am to 10 pm every day. (Photo by Deepak Gupta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

Come February, the commuters of Kolkata Metro would finally get a taste of travelling in the most advanced coaches they have seen, with China-made rakes making their way into the 'City of Joy', a senior railways official said.

Imported at a cost of Rs 7.1 crore per coach from the China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. Ltd (CRRC), the city would get 14 trains with a total of 112 coaches, he told PTI.

This means Kolkata Metro will soon be able to shed its non-AC rakes, at least in the existing north-south corridor.

"These will be state-of-the-art AC coaches with comfortable seating and much like the metro trains run by the DMRC in Delhi. They will also have CCTV cameras," said the official.

Real-time footage from the coaches will be visible to the motorman, who will monitor it on a console. This would enable him to act swiftly in case of any disturbance in the coaches, officials said.

The coaches would be fitted with 30-tonne air conditioners, instead of the existing 22-tonne machines.

The commuters will also be able to communicate with the motorman during an emergency through eight talk-back units.

Once operational, the trains will replace the old ones, which have been running for over three decades in Kolkata's 27.22-km-long south-north subway line.

As many as 300 Kolkata Metro services ferry over 6,50,000 commuters on a daily basis, making it the second-busiest metro system in India after Delhi.