Hindustan Times 14.11.2009
By 2014, you can travel across city on MetroBy 2014, you will able to take an uninterrupted air-conditioned ride from Ghatkopar to Andheri and Charkop to Mankhurd — if all goes according to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority’s plan.
“We are hopeful that by the end of 2014 the city will have three Metro lines at its disposal,” Metropolitan Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad said.
Work on the city’s first Metro line — Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar — is expected to be completed by December 2010. While the foundation stone of the 32-km Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd line was laid in August, work on the project is expected to begin by 2010.
The proposal for the third Metro line between Colaba to Bandra has been submitted to the state. This project will cost the MMRDA Rs 9,000 crore.
Earlier the government was planning to build the 17 km of the network underground between Colaba to Mahim and the rest 3 km from Mahim to Bandra at an elevation. But this would have cost the government around Rs 12,000 crore.
Worried it would not find any takers, the MMRDA later proposed an alternate plan of a part-underground and part- elevated Metro to the state, thus saving nearly Rs 3,000 crore — equivalent to the cost of the first Metro line.
“Our proposal is with the government we hope to get a nod soon and also get requisite clearances from the Centre,” Gaikwad said.
Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy has already assured the state that the Centre will fund 50 per cent of the project cost.
