MMRDA not confident of resuming Monorail service

Almost two months after suspending Monorail services between Wadala and Chembur due to coaches catching fire, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) on Friday said that it is still not confident of resuming the service.

It said services would restart only after it is convinced that the operator of Monorail has complied with fire safety norms. 

“We are awaiting few spares and certain precautions that the Malaysian operator Scomi Engineering will have to take before making the Monorail phase-1 operational. We have also recently conducted training for the staff on how to react in case of fire,” Sanjay Khandare, Additional Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA, told DNA 

On November 9 last year, an empty coach of Monorail had caught fire after which services were suspended. The MMRDA that was initially confident of restarting the service by end of January but has now pushed that deadline further back. 

Interestingly, the independent committee that probed the fire incident had also observed that, “No train should be allowed to run for passenger traffic unless the train is properly examined and made fit to run without any defects as per laid down procedure.” 

Meanwhile, the MMRDA is also in the process to approach the Commissioner of Railway Safety for conducting trial runs for making second phase between Wadala and Mahalaxmi operational.