It is not feasible, say MMRDA officials

MMRDA officials have claimed that an elevated metro in the western suburbs is the only solution for the specified area.

According to Dilip Kawathkar, MMRDA spokesperson, a techno-economic feasibility study has been carried out before the initial level planning of the metro corridors.

“MMRDA appointed Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to conduct a survey about various potential routes of metro and their techno-economical feasibility.

According to DMRC report, an elevated corridor has been suggested for the second phase which is to run from Charkop-Bandra and Mankhurd. Besides this, we have to also think of the costing factor. The underground metro costs about Rs600 crore per km, whereas the expense for the elevated is barely Rs200 crore per km. This means the cost of construction for elevated is just one third,” said Kawathkar.

Senior MMRDA officials have also argued that Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd route will
not have many acquisitions. “The demography of Linking Road is quite simple for metro construction. Other than a couple of stretches near Nanavati Hospital and Santacruz police station, we do not expect to manoeuvre the route,” said a senior official.

The official also argued that Colaba-Bandra route is much more clustered and hence there is no option but to go underground there. “As compared to many areas in South Mumbai such as Colaba, Bhuleshwar, Girgaum or Dadar, Linking Road is much less complicated. We do not need an underground route here,” he said.