Italian firm to prepare report on light metro

An Italian firm has been entrusted with the task of preparing a detailed project report (DPR) for Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority’s (MMRDA) proposed light metro rail between Thane-Kalyan-Bhiwandi.

The MMRDA had scrapped plans to have a monorail corridor between Thane-Kalyan-Bhiwandi after which a feasibility study conducted by the Italian firm D’Appolonia and Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE) on behalf of the MMRDA had suggested the introduction of Light Rail Transit System (LRTS) in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

“The same Italian firm which was involved in carrying out a feasibility study will now prepare a detailed project report for the same. The study will also look at if LRTS is actually feasible in terms of alignment, ridership as the stretch between Thane-Kalyan-Bhiwani is densely populated owing to haphazard development in the region; attaining right of way (ROW) will be a task,” said a senior MMRDA official.

A light metro is cross between a monorail and metro. It is an urban rail set-up with low passenger capacity as compared to a monorail or metro.

“Earlier, we had plans to assign the work of preparing the DPR to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), but its team is already involved with MMRDA directly and indirectly in implementing the other four proposed metro corridors and it will become too much for one organisation with limited team members in Mumbai to handle so much work at once,” said an official.

The Congress-NCP government had scrapped plans to have a monorail in the MMR, citing that the studies conducted in 2014 showed the corridor was not likely to be viable and would have low ridership. It had also taken into consideration the failure of the phase-1 monorail constructed between Wadala and Chembur.