The Mumbai Monorail Phase-2 starting from Santh Ghadge Maharaj (SGM) Chowk to Wadala was commissioned on March 3, 2019 completing two years on Wednesday. However, the problem of poor ridership persists due to limited rakes and the prevailing pandemic situation. Currently, only 5,000 ridership is registered in a day, which is much less than the pre-Covid time period, which was between over 10,000-17,000 per day.
The entire 19.54 kilometers from SGM Chowk to Chembur is operational in a graded manner at a time gap of 30 minutes each. There are total six rakes in working condition, but three rakes are used rotationally. The monorail service is available from 6 am till 11:30 pm.
The Free Press Journal on Tuesday had reported how MMRDA obtained successful response from three Indian bidders --BHEL, Titagarh Wagons Ltd, and Medha Servo Drives Pvt. Ltd. & SMH, Malaysia to manufacture ten new monorail rakes as per the existing systems. Now the received bids will be evaluated and one company will be nominated for the said work.
Following the response from the said companies, MMRDA's long wait for the procurement of new monorail rakes come to an end. The authority till date was finding it difficult to procure more rakes since the guideway beams (tracks), where the monorails run, has been designed in such a manner that only Malaysia based SCOMI manufactured rakes can only operate on these tracks. Also, the manufacturing companies that can design such specific rakes across the world are few. However, with involvement of Indian companies, MMRDA is striving to overcome this biggest challenge. With additional 10 rakes with a headway of five minutes, MMRDA believes the services can be operated efficiently attaining 30 lakh ridership in a month, which is the estimated ridership goal.
