It has been 2,505 days or little less than seven years, since the foundation stone for the first corridor of the Mumbai metro rail was laid by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The corridor is still not operational, with only trial runs under way.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who flagged off a trial run on Wednesday at the Versova metro station in Mumbai, said December 2013 would be the new timeline for completing the project.
The deadline for the 11.4-km corridor on elevated tracks, which will connect the western suburb of Versova to the eastern suburb of Ghatkopar through suburban Andheri, has already been extended twice.
Talking to the media after the flag-off, Chavan accepted that the project had been inordinately delayed. He said the construction of the corridor in a congested area and the unavailability of utility maps, while laying the columns for the corridor, were the main reasons for the delay.
Chavan also pointed out that the process of constructing the columns was the most challenging, as every column had to be custom-made, because the company constructing the corridor had to take into account the utilities below the street and then start digging.
The laying of the overbridges of the suburban railway lines was also a challenge, he said, since it had to be done without disturbing rail traffic.
When asked about cost escalations and the impact on passenger fares, Chavan remained non-committal, saying that such matters could be discussed at a later date.
The corridor provides connectivity between the eastern and western suburbs. It is designed to carry about six lakh commuters per day and reduces travel time from the existing 90 minutes to about 21 minutes.
It is being built as a public-private partnership between Mumbai Metro One of the Anil Ambani Group and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority.
Chavan added that the planning of the second metro corridor (Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd) has hit an environmental hurdle, but efforts were being made at the Central level to clear it.