The Central Railway will carry out micro tunnelling activity on at least 7 locations across Mumbai to tackle the problem of water logging during monsoon. These are between Vikhroli-Kanjurmarg, Matunga-Sion-Kurla, Wadala-Chunabhatti among other locations that becomes susceptible to water logging when it rains heavily and then disrupts rail traffic. This is apart from plans to carry on microtunnelling on the Thane-Diva stretch where 5-6 rail lines have been started.
The Central Railway has already made arrangements at namely three locations of Sandhurst Road, Dadar-Parel, and Masjid stations. According to CR officials, there are four locations between Vikhroli and Kanjurmarg stations while three locations on Matunga-Sion-Kurla stretch and two more is expected to come up on the Harbour line as well.
The decision to go ahead with microtunnelling comes in after ongoing joint meetings between Central Railway and BMC. "These are the locations where water flows into rail tracks from road as topographically these are low lying areas. Microtunnelling will ensure a passageway for water to flow out of the rail premises straight into Mithi River rather than remain on rail lines," said a CR official.
The micro-tunnelling is expected at these locations where there is a saucer like locale that gets waterlogged during monsoon when it rains heavily. At least 50-70 meters long drainage line will pass through using micro tunneling running perpendicular to the rail tracks under the rail lines which will be 2 meters below. This work is similar to the ones carried out at Masjid, Sandhurst Road and Hindmata which was needed to tackle the problem of water logging during incessant rains; which leads to disruption or slowdown in train services.
Explaining the micro tunnelling works; it is namely a trenchless solution for constructing small diameter tunnels, used especially for projects that require the tunnel to cross under dense traffic roads, railways and rivers. Apart from this, floodgates too will be installed which is namely to control the flow of water.
Floodgates will prevent water from entering rail tracks and micro-tunnelling beneath the rail lines. These are some of the works that the Central Railway will carry out in the coming days as part of their pre-monsoon works, which got delayed by more than a month owing to the third wave of Covid-19. The whole idea is to ensure that the Mithi River doesn’t hinder train running, like it does every monsoon.
When the floodgates are shut then it would ensure that water doesn’t flow within the rail premises and excess water logging can be avoided. The Central Railway engineers said that they are going to install these floodgates at Kurla and Sion to begin with and areas that suffer due to deluge in Mithi River during heavy rains.
