Most Mumbai Metro III stations will be under roads

MUMBAI: A majority of Mumbai’s 26 underground Metro III stations will be located directly under the city’s arterial roads.
''Scarcity of land means the stations can only be below the road or open grounds. In this case majority are beneath roads as that is the only open space available. We do not want to construct them under buildings as people residing or working there would not be comfortable,’’ said Ashwini Bhide, managing director, Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd.
The underground stations will be embedded in rock almost at a depth of 75 feet, and above them will be the city’s utilities with layers of earth separating the two.
The 33.5 km underground metro will traverse 29 major roads from Colaba to BKC to Andheri SEEPZ. The Churchgate Metro will be under Jamshedji Tata Road, the Hutatma chowk station under D N Road, CST Metro under Mahapalika Marg and so on.
Nine out of the 26 stations are not under roads. Amongst these, the Grant Road and MIDC stations will be partly under the road and partly on private land. In case of Colaba, Vidhan Bhavan, CST, Siddhivinayak, Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (Domestic) and Terminal 2 will not be under any roads.
Officials said only where there is not enough government land available that the stations are not under the road. The station size 180 metres x 25 metres needs to be accommodated and where it is not possible, it is not under the road.
The MMRCL has mapped over 27 utilities that run under each road and provided a copy to the respective BMC ward office.
''We will not need to shift utilities unlike in Metro I which was an elevated structure and the utilities needed to be shifted for the construction of the piers. In this case there may only a few diversions which have been marked and submitted to the BMC,’’ she said.
In case of BMC utilities, the cost of diversion will be borne by the MMRCL but in case of private companies, Bhide said often the BMC’s agreement with these utilities specifies that they will bear the cost in case of diversion.
The MMRCL has proposed to provide ducts so that the utilities could safely be inserted into them.
Plans for Metro-III, MAP
The 33.5 km route is entirely underground. All the 26 stations will be located below arterial roads with utilities above them. Utilities will only need to be diverted at certain points. There will be no shifting of utilities
With little work on the surface, authorities are confident that once the land necessary for Right of Way is acquired, the project will be completed by 2020
How different Metro-I is, MAP
Metro I Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar is an elevated metro, It took eight years to be completed.
The chief reasons for the delay was the inability of MMRDA to provide a clear Right of Way. Also several utilities needed to be shifted and in the absence of proper mapping, caused utilities to be damaged inconveniencing local residents
Since the stations are elevated they are close to housing societies and have robbed people of their privacy. Several have been forced to keep their windows permanently shut robbing them of light and ventilation.