Mumbai suburban rail network to be expanded

Spelling cheer for Mumbaikars, the Union Budget 2018-2019 has made substantial allocations to augment and expand the city's severely congested Western Railway and Central Railway suburban networks.

The lifeline of Mumbai is proposed to be augmented with an additional pair (Up and Down) of 90 km rail tracks, to be constructed at a cost of Rs 11,000 crore, said Western Railway (WR) Divisional Railway Manager Mukul Jain.

The suburban network, used by around 8.50 million commuters daily, will also be expanded with another 150 km of railway lines to be laid at a cost of Rs 40,000 crore, which will for the first time include elevated corridors in some sections of the space-starved city.

WR Chief Spokesperson Ravinder Bhakar said funds have also been allocated for India's first Rail & Transportation University, proposed to come up in Vadodara, Gujarat.

The university will be equipped with facilities for training manpower for the ambitious Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train project coming up with Japanese collaboration.

On the direct passenger amenities front, all stations with footfalls of over 25,000 passengers will be provided with escalators, which would benefit the entire suburban networking spanning Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad coastal districts.

All railway stations and trains shall be equipped with WiFi networks and CCTV monitoring, as per the budget.

All these proposals -- escalators, WiFi and CCTV -- are already under implementation in Mumbai in stages at various major suburban stations since the past couple of years and will get a further boost with this year's budget, officials say.

--IANS

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