Oval Maidan-Virar elevated rail corridor gets a forward push

Indian Railways' plan to come up with an air-conditioned suburban local train service in Mumbai-where the non-AC suburban railway system is bursting at the seams-has taken a stride forward with the Railway Ministry coming up with the final contours of the Rs 21,000-crore Elevated Rail Corridor Project to link Oval Maidan and Virar.

To be executed through Public-Private Partnership mode on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis, the project envisages a 63.27-kilometre two-track corridor along the existing Churchgate-Virar section.

While 42.72 kilometres of this new corridor will be on elevated track, 8.04 kilometres will be underground and the remaining 12.52 at grade (ground level).

Space constraints and extremely limited possibilities of expanding the rail network at the ground level on the existing route in future have prompted the move to set up this corridor, 68 percent of which will be elevated, 20 percent at grade and 12 percent underground.

The entire stretch, with 26 stations (see box) will be designed for trains to run at an optimum speed of 100 kmph. In the long run, this corridor could be extended beyond Churchgate to go upto Nariman point or Mantralaya.

Railways estimate that around 1.7 million passengers would use the corridor in 2019-20. The Concessionaire executing the project (to be selected through competitive bidding) will have the freedom of setting the tariff.

The project that has been in the works for almost five years finally got the required push from Rail Bhavan with the ministry keen on having its own Metro to compete with the upcoming Mumbai Metro One-a joint venture of Reliance Infrastructure, Veolia Group and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).

Indian Railways operates one of the most crowded and overloaded suburban railway systems in the world, that too, as a loss-making venture due to low ticket rates. For long, the ministry has been toying with the idea of introducing air-conditioned trains on suburban routes where better fare tariffs can contribute to revenue.

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