Mumbai metro sees investment of Rs 62,943 crore

An investment of Rs 62,943 crore is being made to upgrade the infrastructure of Mumbai and its suburbs by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), including the metro network totalling 157 km, to ease commutation woes.  

The MMRDA is already implementing two metro corridors - one, from Andheri (East) to Dahisar (East), which is 18.5-km long with 17 stations, and the second from Dahisar (West) to DN Nagar which is 16.5.-km long with 16 stations.  

The construction of three more corridors, DN Nagar to Mandale Metro-2B, Wadala-Ghatkopar-Thane-Kasarvadavali Metro-4 and Swami Samarth Nagar-Vikhroli (via JVLR) Metro-6, is slated to be taken up next year.

The 23.5-km Metro-2B corridor having 22 stations is worth Rs.10,986 crore, the 32-km Metro-4 corridor with 32 stations will cost Rs 14,549 crore and the 14.5-km-long Metro-6 corridor with 13 stations will cost Rs 5,566 crore.

The MMRDA will undertake four more metro corridors   -   24-km Thane-Bhiwandi-Kalyan Metro-5 Corridor with 17 stations (Rs 8,417 crore), 8-km Wadala to GPO Metro-8 corridor (Rs 2,400 crore), 9-km Andheri (E) to Bandra (E) Metro-9 Corridor (Rs 4,500 crore) and 11-km Dahisar (East) to Mira-Bhayandar Metro-10 corridor (Rs 3,908 crore).

All these corridors are expected to serve more than 40 lakh commuters in the year 2021 from more than 160 metro stations in the city and the metropolitan region.

"Considering the way Mumbaikars have embraced Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar Metro-1 corridor, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers go beyond what is predicted today", said U P S Madan, metropolitan  commissioner, MMRDA.

"I also expect that these metro corridors will encourage Mumbaikars to take public transport and dump thousands of vehicle trips that harm our exchequer dearly in terms of usage of fuel at the cost of environment," he added.

More than 4 lakh commuters travel every day by Mumbai's first metro corridor between Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar.