A simple study by the railways indicated that an alternative to suburban trains was necessary even four decades ago
While the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has spent crores on preparing a Comprehensive Transport Study (CTS) for knowing the transport and infrastructure needs of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) just a few years back, a simple study by the railways indicated that an alternative to suburban trains was necessary even four decades ago.
According to BN Desai— the veteran railways engineer who was a part of the team which designed the totally underground metro plan, a techno economic study of the Colaba-Santa Cruz underground metro clearly said that with the population on the rise, soon the suburban lines are going to prove to be inadequate for the commuters.
“It said that as per the 1971 census, Mumbai had a population of close to 41lakh. Out of which more than 50% people were staying in the Island city. The railways were running 764 trains on Central and 535 on Western line then. Obviously, the report felt that an alternative system- at least connecting the South Mumbai with airport was needed,” said Desai.
Two British consultancy firms were asked to prepare a report. According to Desai, a five member team from England did the survey along with the railway officials.
MMRDA officials are at the moment contemplating a third rail system for the next phases of metro. But, Desai had designed the underground metro with the third rail system running on 750 volts DC system then.
“Actually, there were two plans, which we named plan 6 and plan 7. While plan 6 was to run a rail system parallel to the existing line and plan 7 was to construct an underground metro. We in fact carried out soil testing reports in three phases as well. We found different levels of blue basalt rock at different depth in these phases,” informed Desai who still has a lot of information about the project- which is now history.
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