New Metro Lines For Mumbai And Thane Ahead Of Municipal Body Polls
Two new metro lines join the already growing list of metro corridors in Mumbai
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday announced two more metro lines, including one exclusively for the Thane region, expanding metro connectivity in the city ahead the crucial municipal body polls.
The projects were cleared in 141st Authority meeting of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority chaired by the chief minister who is also the chairman of the body.
Both these metro lines will be elevated and is expected to cost Rs 15,000 crore, the chief minister said.
One of the lines, Metro-5, will stretch over 24 kilometres, connecting Thane to Bhiwandi-Kalyan, and cost Rs 8,416 crore. The second line, Metro-6, will cover a relatively shorter distance of 14.5 kilometres connecting Swami Samarth Nagar(Lokhandwala)-Jogeshwari-Vikhroli-Kanjurmarg area and will involve a cost of Rs 6,672 crore.
The Metro-5 line will have 17 stations while the Metro-6 line will have 13 stations falling under it.
It took 8 years for previous government to approve 10 kilometres of metro network but now, with this, we have approved 13 times more network in just 2 years.Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister, Maharashtra
The chief minister expects the major phases of these metro lines to be completed over the next four years. The combined capacity of Mumbai metro will exceed that of the suburban trains once completed, he added.
Both projects would now be placed before the State Cabinet for approval.
Besides announcing the metro lines, the chief minister also announced two more important projects that were approved by the authority.
The first 500 wi-fi hotspots across Mumbai will be set up at a cost of Rs 194 crore and theMaharashtra Information and Technology Corporation under the aegis of the Directorate Of Information and Technology has been tasked with the job of identifying the spots.
Out of the 1,200 hotspots announced by the state government for Mumbai, MMRDA approved a Rs 194 crore project to set up 500 wi-fi hotspots in Mumbai. The first phase of this project of identifying the hotspots would be carried out by Maharashtra Information and Technology Corporation under the aegis of Directorate of Information and Technology.
“We are planning to make Mumbai a wi-fi city and this is a first step towards it,” Fadnavis said.
Apart from the metro rail projects, widening of the Rail over Bridge at Kopri, Thane for Rs 246 crore was also approved in the meeting. The existing 2+2 lane bridge will now be expanded into 4+4 lane bridge with service roads thus easing out the traffic chaos, the minister said.
Besides announcing these projects, MMRDA has also approved Rs 1,978 crore water supply schemes for Mira-Bhayander and Vasai-Virar under the Surya scheme.
Work for these water supply projects will start in four months and should be completed by December 2020, the chief minister said.
This is the second big metro announcement in three weeks. Recently, the Maharashtra government had approved Metro 2B and Metro 4 with an investment of nearly Rs 25,500 crore.