Mumbai : Central Railway (CR) will have to wait for at least another six months to start the construction of dedicated goods train line between Wadala and Kurla. Once ready, the traffic on harbour line would be smoother, benefiting the commuters.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) which has undertaken the work of rehabilitating the 1,680 hutments that have illegally encroached the land belonging to Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) and CR will miss its December deadline.
The project has been stuck since February 2012 and picked up pace after joint meetings were held every Tuesday where in representatives of all the agencies came together to resolve issues holding various projects on the railways. The meetings were initiated by the General Manager of CR.
The encroached land has been divided into nine pockets of which the eligibility of 591 hutment spread across six pockets have been decided while the work on the remaining three is yet to be done. Since the rehabilitation work was started since May last year, only 273 of 1,680 hutment have been allotted homes till now, of which only 214 have been vacated.
A senior official from MMRDA handling the project said, “The work of removing all the encroachments will take at least another six months. The issue has been stuck since these hutment dwellers have been demanding homes close to the railway stations which is expensive and not available.”
These hutments are being given alternate accommodation at Mankhurd. The vacated huts have been demolished and a boundary wall is being constructed simultaneously. The project when completed will benefit thousands of Harbour line commuters who are now affected as freight trains from the port trust use suburban line.
Iram Siddique
