Delay in construction shoots up Mumbai’s Metro 3 cost by over ₹800 crore
The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) attributed the delay to the legal issues regarding the required permissions for the project.
mumbai Updated: Mar 16, 2018 10:40 IST
Civil construction on the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz (Metro 3) corridor is running behind schedule by six months, pushing up cost by more than Rs800 crore so far. The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) — the implementing agency of the 33.5-km fully underground corridor — attributed the delay to the legal issues regarding the required permissions for the project. But the delay won’t impact the deadline, MMRC officials said.
According to the timeline set by the MMRC, civil work on all the seven construction packages is behind by an average of 50% up to January 2018. According to the data, MMRC had planned to complete 31.7% construction work between Cuffe Parade and Hutatma Chowk up to January 25, 2018, but it managed to complete just 17.9%. Locals had opposed tree cutting and construction at night. In the 5.06-km segment between Mumbai Central and Acharya Atre Chowk, Worli, only 9.3% work has been completed up to January 25, 2018, against the planned 28.4%. The civil construction work includes piling, digging, utility shifting and tunnel boring.
S K Gupta, director (projects), MMRC, said the delay has escalated the project cost to more than Rs 810 crore.
“A delay of one day costs Rs4.5crore for the exchequer. This will be indirectly borne by taxpayers at a later stage. Due to legal issues, we did not get permissions on time to start tree cutting, which impacted the start of civil construction,” Gupta said. Senior MMRC officials added that the losses will either be borne by the state or central government or through a loan.
Besides tree-cutting permissions, the project faced numerous hurdles owing to litigation from environmental groups and citizen against the MMRC’s plan to house its car depot within Aarey Milk Colony. In addition to that, an earlier stay by the Bombay high court, disallowing construction work between 10pm and 6am, slowed down construction by almost 30%, officials added.
The Metro rail project, which is estimated to cost Rs23,136 crore, will provide crucial connectivity for Mumbai and will supplement the overburdened suburban railway system. Phase-1 of the project, from Aarey to Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), will be operational by June 2021 and BKC to Cuffe Parade will be operational by December 2021.
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