Ahead of polls, Modi to launch three more metro lines in city

Ahead of the coming Maharashtra Assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay foundation stones for three more metro corridors worth over Rs 19,000 crore in Mumbai on Saturday.

Assembly elections are due in Maharashtra in October.

Modi will also perform bhoomipujan (ground-breaking) for the controversial Metro Bhavan in Aarey Colony area, considered to be the green lung of the city by the environmental activists.

Activists have slammed the Maharashtra government's decision to build the main carshed of the metro project and a casting yard in Aarey Colony, adjacent to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, which will require felling of thousands of trees.

There were protests against planned tree-cutting earlier this week.

The three metro projects -- all elevated lines -- that Modi will announce are 9.2-km Gaimukh-Shivaji Chowk (Mira Road) metro-10 corridor; 12.8-km Wadala-CST metro-11 corridor and 20.7-km Kalyan-Taloja metro-12 corridor.

The 32-storey Metro Bhavan, which will be the integrated operations and control centre for the proposed 14 metro lines in and around Mumbai, is proposed to be built on a 20,387 sq mt plot with a developable area of 1,14,088 sq mt within Aarey Colony.

Of the total developable area, the Metro Bhavan will consume 24,293 sq mt of forest land, the metro training institute will come up on 9,624 sq mt and another 80,171 sq mt of the green cover will be consumed for other metro-related works.

The Metro Bhavan is expected to completed in 36 months, while the three metro lines are scheduled for completion by 2026.

Besides these, Modi will also inaugurate the first metro coach manufactured by the state-run Bharat Earth Movers at its Bengaluru facility in flat 75 days.

The state-run Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has ordered over 500 such coaches for the first few lines of the metro including the Dahisar-DN Nagar metro-2A and Andheri (East)-Dahisar (East) metro-7 corridors, which will be completed soon.

Maharashtra government has decided to create a 337-km long metro network involving 14 lines across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) over four-five years, investing more than Rs 1 lakh crore.

Of these, civil works on six corridors -- the Dahisar- DN Nagar metro-2A corridor, DN Nagar-Mandale metro-2B corridor, Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ metro-3 corridor, Wadala- Kasarvadavli metro-4 corridor, Swami Samarth Nagar-Vikhroli metro-6 corridor and Andheri (East) to Dahisar (East) metro-7 corridor--have already begun.

"This 139-km metro network promises to carry over 50 lakh commuters every day. And now, we are undertaking 42.6-km of additional metro work with three more corridors," MMRDA said in a statement.

The prime minister will also inaugurate the Bandongri metro station on the Andheri (East)-Dahisar (East) metro-7.

Modi will also visit Aurangabad in central Maharashtra and dedicate the AURIC (Aurangabad industrial city) Shendra project. He will also address a state-level women's self help groups' conference being organized by Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission.

AURIC is one of the country's greenfield smart industrial cities, being developed over an area of 10,000 acre and is a part of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor.

However, Modi's plan to inaugurate an 11-km Nagpur metro line has been cancelled due to heavy rain forecast in Maharashtra's second capital.

A statement from Maha Metro, the implementing authority for Nagpur metro, said, "due to heavy rain forecast, PM's visit to Nagpur has been cancelled.