One of the options for the 20 km long route is to go completely underground which would cost MMRDA a whopping Rs12,000 crore.
Recession teaches even the richest some valuable lessons. The cash-rich Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA), which even lends to the state government for loan waivers to farmers, has been forced to rethink its original plan to construct a totally underground Metro line (Metro-III) between Colaba and Bandra.
As work for the first line of metro between Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar gets underway and bidding for the second line of Metro — Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd — is awaited, MMRDA has already proposed two designs for the third line of metro running between the World Trade Centre in Colaba (Cuffe Parade) to Bandra. One of the options for the 20 km long route is to go completely underground which would cost MMRDA a whopping Rs12,000 crore.
According to sources in the Authority, the preferred option is to have a partly underground metro. “If we construct underground route from Colaba to Mahalaxmi and an elevated from Mahalaxmi to Bandra, we are set to save at least Rs3,000 crore,” a source said.
It is ironical that the Colaba-Bandra is being envisaged as a totally underground one, especially since the authority have rejected similar proposals from residents elsewhere in the suburbs (read Juhu) to go subterranean.
The Authority’s argument is that the cost of an underground escalates manifold compared to an elevated one. While an overground infrastructure for Metro could cost around Rs235 crore per km, an underground one could be as much as Rs635 crore per km.
In the Metro-II line of Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd, residents of the Juhu Vile-Parle Development (JVPD) Scheme and on Linking Road at Bandra protested that they had been deprived of an underground metro on their stretch, even as the MMRDA was planning an underground third route from Colaba to Bandra.
The issue went up to chief minister Ashok Chavan who was forced to meet the residents to find an amicable solution. The residents felt that an overground line would be overlooking their houses and disturb the existing tranquillity, for whatever its worth.
In a reply to an RTI application filed by architect Nitin Killawala, MMRDA has failed to give the engineer’s plan, or any other plan which details the exact route of the Metro-II. Similarly, the authority has also not provided the number of properties which may be affected during the construction of the metro.
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