The estimated cost escalation for relocating the Metro 3 car shed from Aarey Colony to Kanjurmarg will be Rs 200 crore, the Maharashtra cabinet was told on Wednesday.
Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) Commissioner RA Rajeev informed the cabinet that the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) will now have to prepare a revised detailed project report (DPR) for Metro 3 and will have to take the central government’s approval for the revised cost. The Government of India’s approval for the revised expenditure is necessary as the former has 50 per cent stake in the project.
Rajeev said MMRDA will have to bear additional expenses to increase the length of the SEEPZ station up to the proposed car shed. Further, MMRC will also have to bear additional burden, comprising expenditure already made on the construction of car shed at Aarey Colony (Rs 100 crore) and another Rs 100 crore on the combined car shed for Metro 3 and Metro 6 at Kanjurmarg.
Rajeev said MMRC will have to prepare a revised detailed project report for the Metro 3 line, which will have to be approved by the state cabinet and the MMRC board. Minister of Tourism and Environment Aaditya Thackeray visited the Kanjurmarg site, on Wednesday, along with the officers of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), MMRDA and MMRC. The government, on October 6, had handed over 102 acres of land in Kanjurmarg to MMRDA free of cost for the development of a car shed for both Metro 3 and Metro 6 lines.
Aaditya said, “This morning, officials of CMO, MMRDA and MMRC visited the Kanjurmarg plot handed over to MMRDA for the car depot. Metro lines 3 & 6 car depots will be made here and increase connectivity with a revised plan. Soil testing has begun already. I joined them to see the plot.”
Thackeray’s announcement evoked mixed reactions as the ruling partners Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress as well as environmentalists and citizen organisations wholeheartedly welcomed it. However, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed that the decision has been taken to maintain ego.
During his presentation to the cabinet on the Kanjurmarg site, Rajeev informed that MMRDA had considered Mumbai University’s Kalina Campus, Pahadi Goregaon and Kanjurmarg as alternate options, following the scrapping of Metro 3 car shed in Aarey Colony. However, MMRDA found that the Kalina Campus land was viable as the Mumbai University has proposed expansion there. As far as the Pahadi Goregaon land was concerned, the government will have to pay the land acquisition cost to the owner, which won’t be a financially viable option.
Rajeev said, with the availability of adequate land at Kanjurmarg, the Metro 3 car shed can now be shifted there. He told the cabinet that Metro Line 6 will have the same system specification as that of Metro Line 3 and this will be possible as MMRDA has not yet purchased the necessary system for Metro 6.
