The trial runs for the Mumbai Metro-3 –involving Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ corridor --will begin sometime in January 2022, the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (MMRCL) announced here on Friday.
In an announcement that came a day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray gave a go-ahead to the project, MMRCL’s Managing Director Ranjit Singh Deol said: “We will receive the first of 8 car-train in the form of individual coaches by the year end. It will take us about two weeks to assemble the first train following which the trials will start”.
“The permission given by the State government has given a great impetus to the project. Having completed 97 per cent tunneling and about 70 per cent of civil work completed, we look at the proposed technical trials of the prototype train as another milestone in the execution of the project,” Deol said.
“We intend to start setting up a temporary facility soon. It may take about 2.5 months to complete. Field trials will immediately start post arrival of the trains,” Deol said.
Replying to questions on issues like creation of a temporary facility, train delivery and testing tack area, Deol said: “We are planning to conduct the proposed trials from the mouth of the ramp situated on the Western Side of the Marol-Maroshi Road and in the area vacated by the diversion of the road to the underpass which is getting ready.
On how many trains are currently available, the MMRCL MD said: “As of now, two Metro Trains (8-car each) have been manufactured, while the third one is being readied.
Asked as to where alternative Car Shed will be for the trains and where will the coaches be parked, Deol said: “The current programme is for testing of proto-type train and it will be parked at the temporary facility at Marol-Maroshi Road”.
On the under-construction rap, the MMRCL MF said: “Ramp is an infrastructure that connects underground part of the corridor with the surface. The ramp at Sariput Nagar is 225 meter-long”.
Currently, the project is struck in stand-off between the Maharashtra Government and the Centre over the location of car-shed for Mumbai Metro 3. It may be recalled that the previous BJP-led Maharashtra Government had decided to construct the car shed for the Mumbai Metro line 3 at Aarey Colony in north Mumbai, ignoring the vehement opposition to the project put up by the environmentalists and activists who apprehended that in the event of the project coming up at Aarey colony a large number of trees would be felled.
After it came to power in the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) scrapped the previous BJP-Government’s plan and decided to shift the car shed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg.
However, the Metro Car Shed project has run into dispute between the Centre and state government over the ownership of the land chosen at Kanjurmarg for the Mumbai Metro-3 project.
On his part, the Chief Minister has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- through a NITI Aayog delegation that visited the state recently --to intervene and end the tussle of the Kanjurmarg site selected for the Mumbai Metro car shed, which is stuck in a legal dispute.
The Chief Minister has meanwhile directed the MMRCL not to chop a single tree in the Aarey Colony area - which was earlier rejected as the original proposed site for the car-shed - and instead build the ramp in Marol-Maroshi Road for conducting the train trials. Talking to media persons on Thursday, the chief minister had said: "The trial runs for the Metro line 3 will be done underground at Marol-Maroshi, outside the Aarey area".
The Chief Minister said the Colaba-SEEPZ Metro line 3 is aimed at easing traffic congestion and pollution in Mumbai.
Meanwhile, the train manufacturer, Alstom, has already conducted technical trials of the 8-car trains in SriCity, Andhra Pradesh, and now the trains will be coming to Mumbai for rigorous trials of 10,000-kms before the Mumbai Metro 3 operations begin with 31 trains.