The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority’s (MMRDA) plans to connect places on the eastern coast of Mumbai through water transport have gone bust.
While chief minister Ashok Chavan on Thursday was unclear whether the MMRDA was taking up the eastern coast passenger water transport project, top officials from the MMRDA confirmed that the project is facing problems.
After a meeting with MMRDA officials, Chavan still could not clearly answer questions regarding the project. “The project has been carried out by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC),” is all he had to say. When he was told that though MSRDC is going ahead with the western coast passenger water transport project, the MMRDA is yet to start with the eastern coast project, he had nothing to say.
MMRDA metropolitan commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad confirmed that the project had run aground. “Our Roll-on-Roll-off (RoRo) project will head for a tendering process soon,” Gaikwad told reporters. He, however, refused to explain in detail why the project was stuck.
One of the most delayed suburban transport projects, and one which has the potential to reduce the burden on Mumbai’s overcrowded suburban railway service, the passenger water transport project was first conceived by the MSRDC in 2003. The process of tenders for the project ground to a halt when the awarded tender had to be cancelled due to technical glitches, in 2005.
The MMRDA came into the picture nearly a year back, when the authority made a budgetary provision of Rs100 crore for the east coast project. The approximate cost of the project was Rs800 crore.
Based on a private-public-partnership model, the project was planned with a travel time of 45 minutes from Ferry Wharf up to Belapur, Nerul and Vashi.
The MMRDA was also in talks with the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) and had in-principle approval from the agency for using Ferry Wharf. The idea was to construct jetties at all four places and the private operator was to run the ships on PPP basis.
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