The rail link between Navi Mumbai, South Mumbai and the Western suburbs will get stronger from 2022. People will be able to travel 72-km from Panvel all the way till Borivali in a single journey as the railways will start extending the Harbour line from Goregaon to Borivali from mid-2022.
For this rail line, the Western Railway will complete the survey by December this year. Once the survey is completed, the rail authorities will call for tenders for the work. “We will start calling for tenders for this project in January next year and we expect work to start after June 2022,” said a Western Railway official.
This new line will extend from Goregaon to Borivali at a cost of Rs 745 crore. Sources said that for this line, basic extension work from Goregaon to Borivali has already begun, and space is being created for track-laying. At stretches, tracks too are being laid after Goregaon, further north on the Harbour line. A 3-km elevated stretch over Malad could be the possible solution to extend the existing Harbour line on this route, officials said.
At Malad Railway Station, spaces have been created next to platform number 1 for this proposed extension. However, the WR officials said that beyond that there are railway and private land where buildings are built which need to be shifted.
At present, the Harbour line runs till Goregaon and taking it to Borivali has been a hassle due to limitations of land and alignment issues. "The work of extension of Harbour line from Goregaon to Borivali has been sanctioned recently by the Railway Board,” said Sumit Thakur, Chief PRO, Western Railway.
The 7.08-km Harbour line extension project is part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project-III (MUTP-III) proposed by the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation. It was sanctioned by the railway board in 2019 and is being executed by the Western Railway.
