The 3rd line project was first proposed by CR to the railway board in 2009, with its cost envisaged at that time to be in the range of Rs 252 crores.
The 3rd line between Kalyan and Kasara, expected to cost upwards of Rs 600 crores, got its biggest fund outlay so far with Central Railway issuing tenders worth Rs 105 crores on Friday. With this allotment, CR has let out Rs 140 crores, or around 24% of the project's total cost.
These works are for ground-laying work on the 67 kilometres line and is expected to take about 30 months to complete. Once functional, the line will be the longest bi-directional rail line in CR's Mumbai division and will allow long-distance and goods trains to run in both directions on the track. Western Railway's 5th line, used by long distance trains, between Mumbai Central and Borivali is a bi-directional track.
CR had last year in July allotted Rs 35 crores to build 7 major bridges on the route as part of project.
"The Kalyan-Kasara is a huge project and if all goes according to plan, should be up and running in the next five years," said an official connected to the project.
The 3rd line project was first proposed by CR to the railway board in 2009, with its cost envisaged at that time to be in the range of Rs 252 crores.
The Kalyan-Kasara route- currently having just two lines- has been one of the most congested rail stretches in the country with a huge number of suburban trains competing with a host of long-distance trains moving towards Nashik and then onto the north and eastern parts of the country. This is in addition to the 20-odd freight trains that take up space on the twin lines.
As per CR records, a total of 147 suburban trains are run on these routes. Of these 34 are to Kasara, 39 to Aasangaon and 74 to Titwala. In addition to these suburban lines, there are 71 long-distance trains that use 49 paths- or departure slots- every day on these lines to go to places like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Kolkata and the north-east. "All these trains compete with the suburban trains for slots which makes it a very congested route. The third line will take away some of the load on these two lines," said the official.
"For a long time the one thing that slowed down these projects was the lack of money. But now with money being raised through various sources, the biggest being LIC which will be loaning the railways Rs 1.5 lakh crores over the next five years, it is high time critical projects like these are expedited. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region is expanding rapidly and new line will be required beyond Kalyan in the north east (Nashik) and south-east (Pune) direction. The passenger load at Titwala, Asangaon and Kasara is growing phenomenally," said an official.
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