The 6th line project is part of the projects nationwide under the Prime Minister's Office-monitored PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation) mechanism
The tough deadline for the strategic Mumbai Central-Borivali 6th line project has been a formidable headache for Western Railway officials. The alignment has a huge number of encroachments and the data available with the railways show that in the past three years, only 10 per cent of encroachment on railway land has been cleared across the country despite sustained efforts. In Mumbai, WR officials said that the problem gets even more acute because of the 'costlier than gold' status of land in the city, and secondly, the encroachments are much higher than the official count of 607 shanty units.
The 6th line project is part of the projects nationwide under the Prime Minister's Office-monitored PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation) mechanism. The entire project has to be completed by March 2021, but Railways officials have been told to complete the Borivali to Bandra Terminus part by March 2019 so that its positive effects on the train timings in the city can be highlighted during the Lok Sabha and assembly polls scheduled for 2019.
In reply to a Right to Information plea filed by DNA, WR had said that there were 607 shanty units encroaching on the alignment between Borivali and Bandra terminus. The survey for encroachments between Bandra and Mumbai Central has not even been conducted so far, the RTI reply from WR stated. WR spends about Rs50 lakh every month to remove encroachments between Borivali and Santa Cruz, said officials.
"In fact, the number of shanties between Kandivali and Malad on the western fringe continues to grow. It alone is not more than 607 shanty units. The problem in Mumbai is that even one person, if he decides to be obstructively litigious, can stall a project worth several hundred crores. Moreover, the railways is still fairly stuck in politics when it comes to clearing encroachments," said a WR official.
The cost of the 6th line project between 2008 (when it was sanctioned), and 2016 has increased by a 114 per cent from Rs430 crore to Rs918.53 crore.
According to the Railway Ministry's statistics, the Railways currently have 879.51 hectares of its land encroached across the country, and the area reclaimed from these encroachments is just 94.28 hectares. In all, Railways has 4,73,052 hectares of land under it, of which, approximately 52,401 hectares of land is vacant land that can be developed or commercially exploited.
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