Legal tangles and hurdles owing to the stay order by the Bombay Hight Court has slowed the completion of the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro-3 underground corridor work. Consequently, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) has said that there will be a delay in making the corridor operational.

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Recently, the MMRC said that the first phase which was initially planned for the metro to run between Aarey Colony and Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) has now been shortened to operate only from Aarey Colony to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA).

According to MMRC officials, the distance of the phase has been reduced due to the tree-cutting restraints along the construction site, which was imposed by the HC earlier this year.

The deadline to make the underground corridor operational has been moved from 2020 to 2021. MMRC officials say that the first phase will open in March 2021, and the second phase between the CSIA and Colaba will be operational from December 2021.

Ashwini Bhide, managing director, MMRC, had last month said that, "Our earlier dates were 2020 but we lost about six months time due to the tree-cutting petition and the stay order."

In its August 2017 newsletter, the MMRC claimed that the recent HC stay order of not permitting metro work during the night has further slowed down the process.

Bhide in the MMRC newsletter was quoted, saying, "The month began with yet another new challenge, in the form of High Court restrictions between 10:00 pm to 06:00 am on construction and ancillary activities by civil contractors in response to a writ petition. Though the restriction at present is for a period of two weeks, this order has obviously put constraints on the working times and slowed down the pace of construction work."