Mumbai, Aug 11 (Agency) The Maharashtra Cabinet on Wednesday gave a nod to revise the cost of Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Mumbai Metro Line-3 project. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde presided over the cabinet meeting, while Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis along with newly inducted 18 ministers were present during the meeting. The state cabinet gave its approval for revision of the project after the central government requested the state to share the burden of increased cost of the project.
The original cost of this project was Rs 23,136 crore but after revision, it will be Rs 33,405.82 crore. As per the revised plan, the state government’s share in this project has gone up from Rs 2,402.7 crore to Rs 3,699.81 crore. Therefore, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has instructed the authority to give an additional amount of Rs 1,297.74 crore to the Mumbai Metro Rail as part of the state’s share. According to the revised financial plan, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has increased the loan amount from Rs 13,235.19 crore to Rs 19,924.34 crore, and the state gave its nod for borrowing of increased amount.
The 33.5 Km-long Mumbai Metro Route-3 is entirely underground and the route has 27 stations, including 26 subways and one overground, and is expected to carry 1.7 million passengers per day by the year 2031. Upon completion of this route, important hubs like Nariman Point, Worli, Bandra-Kurla Complex and International and Interstate Airports, Marol Industrial Estate, Seepz will be connected by Metro, reducing the travel time from Colaba to International Airport to just 50 minutes. At present, 98.6 per cent of the tunnels on the route have been completed and about 82.6 per cent of the underground stations have been completed. Also, acquisition of 73.14 hectares of government land and 2.56 hectares of private land has been completed for this project.