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Juhu wants Metro buried

The residents of Juhu-Vile Parle Development Scheme (JVPD) have accused the MMRDA of being biased against it in planning an elevated route for the second corridor of the Metro rail.

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The residents of Juhu-Vile Parle Development Scheme (JVPD) have accused the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) of being biased against it in planning an elevated route for the second corridor of the Metro rail.

The tendering process is on for the corridor, which is proposed from Charkop to Mankhurd via Bandra and is expected to cost Rs7,660 crore. The 31-km stretch will have 27 stations.

The residents want the corridor to be underground. They say an elevated corridor will make the already congested traffic on SV Road and Link Road even more chaotic. What is rankling them the most is that the third corridor of the Metro, between Colaba and Bandra, will be underground.

If the Colaba-Bandra corridor can be underground, why cannot the second corridor also be, architect Nitin Killawala, an office-bearer of JVPD Association, questioned. At least the 8-km stretch from Andheri to Bandra should be underground, he said.

Sherley Joseph Singh, another member, said, “Traffic from SV Road on the south to Link Road on the North and vice-versa passes through the JVPD area. We already have huge traffic bottlenecks. The overhead Metro line will result in chaos.”

“This clearly is a bias against western suburbs,” BJP corporator from Bandra Ashish Shelar said. “I have submitted 27 objections to the MMRDA,” Shelar, who is a member of MMRDA, said.

But MMRDA officials said underground Metro is neither technically nor economically feasible in the JVPD area.  “We are following the recommendations made in the techno-economical study done by the best organisation in the country for metro rail projects (the Delhi-Metro Rail Corporation),” PRK Murthy, chief of town and country planning division of MMRDA, said. Narrow roads don’t permit an elevated corridor between Colaba and Bandra. Areas such as Bhuleshwar, Chandanwadi, Mumbai Central, Gokhale Road and Lady Jamshedji Road cannot have elevated Metro, he said. An underground corridor would cost around Rs600 crore per km. “An elevated corridor will cost less —  Rs180 crore to Rs200 crore per km,” said Murthy.

s_ninad@dnaindia.net

Read: Project on cost escalation track

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