It is nearly more than 15 years now that the railways are trying to get the World Bank-funded Kurla-Thane railway line built and now have fixed a fresh deadline of this month-end.
So why is construction of an 18-km stretch of line proving to be so difficult for the Central Railway.
It is nearly more than 15 years now that the railways are trying to get the World Bank-funded Kurla-Thane railway line built and now have fixed a fresh deadline of this month-end. It is not just leading to a huge amount of waste of public money, but also delaying the city’s rail upgrade project.
The railways last week begun removing stretches of track that had been laid after the commissioner of railway safety identified technical problems with the layout of the tracks.
This is the second time the railways are doing so as in October the CR had done a similar process of removing the tracks and changing the alignment near Bhandup.
Railway officials said that most of the problems are now over and they were confident of opening the line by month-end.
It is not just engineering problems and goof-up but a major amount of time was taken over by rehabilitation of not just slums and markets, but even full-fledged towers.
“There were slums, fish markets, building towers and a long list of structures that kept coming in the way. The lines that had been laid had to be removed, upgraded several times. The actual railway engineering project begun in 2008-end and there were still a handful of toilet blocks to be removed. So the major amount of delay is due to the rehabilitation issues,” countered a senior railway official.
The Kurla-Thane additional lines project is a part of the World Bank-funded Mumbai Urban Transport Project.
The project is divided into two phases-phase I Kurla-Bhandup (10 km) approved in 1995-96 at a cost estimated at Rs102.90 crore and phase II Bhandup-Thane (7 km) approved in 1997-98 at a cost estimated at Rs. 56.79 crore.
Besides this, the project requires an additional cost of Rs7-8 crore. According to officials, the total cost of the project is Rs166 crore.
Officials said the buildings at Ghatkopar were one of the biggest and major hurdles of the project. Residents refused to budge unless free accommodation of equivalent area was not provided to them.
They also demanded that the alternate accommodation be provided in Ghatkopar itself. A plot was identified near Nath Pai Nagar in Ghatkopar and a 10-storey building was built there for them. The railways too had to deposit money for it.
A few years ago, Central Railway had undertaken one of the biggest tree transplantation exercises and transplanted all trees with a girth of 45cm and above, that came in the way of the 18-km stretch.
The transplantation, which cost over Rs22 lakh, made way for laying the additional pair of tracks. The project conditions stated that the contractor had to uproot the trees in such a manner so that the attached soil on root fibres were not disturbed.
Transplantation was done at Kurla railway colony east and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus premises.
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