Mumbai Metro begins operations Sunday

Mumbai will enter a world class era of commuting with the long anticipated inauguration of the Mumbai Metro Sunday, a top official said here Saturday.

RInfra's Mumbai Metro One Pvt. Ltd CEO Abhay Mishra made the announcement at a media conference here Saturday morning.

This is India's first metro railway project implemented on a public-private partnership model by a consortium headed by RInfra since 2007, at a total cost of around Rs.4,300 crore.

Accordingly, from Sunday the 11.4 km long Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar east-west corridor with 12 elevated stations en route will become operational, proving to be a boon for Mumbaikars, especially with monsoon around the corner.

The Metro service will start 5.30 a.m. and continue till midnight with a total of 16 rakes deployed on the sector, serving the glamour and IT centres of Versova and the business and manufacturing areas of Ghatkopar at a speed of 80 kmph.

Each of the colourful rakes with four coaches will have a capacity of around 375 commuters or around 1,500 commuters per service, zooming above the city between Versova to Ghatkopar.

"The number of coaches will be increased to six per train by 2017," said Mishra.

Daily, around 600,000 commuters are expected to travel by the Mumbai Metro at affordable ticket rates.

"There will be 250 services both ways in air-conditioned comfort, at intervals of around four minutes, covering the distance between Versova to Ghatkopar within 21 minutes," he added.

Presently, the east-west corridor between Versova-Ghatkopar has no suburban train link and is serviced by either BEST public buses or cabs, taking around 90-120 minutes, depending on traffic density and other factors.

The 12 stations are conveniently located, starting with Versova, DN Nagar, Azad Nagar, Andheri, Western Express Highway (WEH), Chakala, Airport Road, Marol Naka, Saki Naka, Subhash Nagar, Asalpha Road and terminating at Ghatkopar.

A special purpose vehicle, MMOPL was incorporated for the implementation of the mega project, in whcih RInfra holds 69 percent of the equity, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority holds 26 percent and the remaining five percent is held by Veolia Transport RATP Asia, France.

With the commissioning of Phase-I's first line (Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar), Mumbai will wait for the Colaba-Bandra-Charkop (38.24 km) line and Bandra-Kurla-Mankhurd (13.37 km) line totalling to a network stretching 62.68 km.

Phase-II will include Charkop-Dahisar (7.5 km), Ghatkopar-Mulund (12.4 km) followed by Phase-III comprising BKC-Kanjurmarg via Mumbai Airport (19.5 km), Andheri east-Dahisar east (18 km), Hutatma Chowk-Ghatkopar (21.8 km) and Sewri-Prabhadevi (3.5 km).

The entire Mumbai Metro project will be 146.5 km and is estimated to cost nearly Rs.20,000 crore, scheduled to be completed by 2021.