dna exclusive: Mumbai Metro set to roll on Sunday

The Mumbai Metro will be inaugurated on Sunday morning. Officials of Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) will make a formal announcement on this on Saturday morning.

According to a source, the 11.04 km Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar corridor would be inaugurated and the first commercial metro train will be flagged off by a state dignitary on Sunday morning. The facility will be opened to the public after that.

Last month, chief executive officer of RInfra-led Mumbai Metro One Private Limited had announced that the company was prepared to commission Metro within a week after getting the safety certificate from the Railway Board.

On Thursday (June 5), the Railway Board issued the final sanction, making the corridor safe for public use. MMOPL received this only on Friday morning.

On Friday afternoon, senior MMOPL officials and the management met to decide on the plan for inauguration as well as the date of opening. "At this meeting, it was decided that the route would be inaugurated on Sunday, that is June 8," informed the source.

This means, from Monday onwards office-goers will benefit from the latest East-West connectivity in Mumbai.

The construction on the project began only on February 8, 2008 though the foundation stone had been laid on June 21, 2006 by the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

Thereafter, after overcoming several obstacles and challenges, the first metro rail of Mumbai is set to commence commercial run. Over the years, the project cost too had shot up considerably, from the initially projected Rs 2,356 crore to Rs 4,321 crore.