It has been a year since the merger of Railway Budget with General Budget. In this Budget, the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC) - planning agency for Mumbai - had received Rs 519 crore for Mumbai Urban Transport Project-3. However even till now, they have not been able to utilise a penny out of it; namely, because the state government is yet to rehabilitate people affected under MUTP-3 and acquire land for the same.
Under MUTP-3, there will be new suburban rail corridors: Panvel-Karjat, Airoli-Kalwa elevated rail and quadrupling of Virar-Dahanu. It also includes 565 AC coaches as well and taking measures for trespass control. Railways officials from MRVC said that the major reason behind non-utilisation of funds allocated under the General Budget is the rehabilitation of project affected people and acquiring land for these projects.
The state government agencies are entrusted with shifting project affected people (PAPs) and then acquire land; which has not been done. There are nearly 2,400 PAPs comprising of all three rail corridors and need to acquire an estimated 156 hectares for MUTP-3. "Until this is not done, there is no scope of utilising funds. It is not that funds will lapse and shall be available in coming months as well," said an official from MRVC.
Although Airoli-Kalwa route is barely 3 km or so, but it is mostly affected due to PAPs who now need to be shifted. The other two rail corridors have ample ground available yet it needs to be acquired. After the completion of the project, passengers will be able to take suburban local trains between Panvel and Karjat railway stations without having to change trains at Thane station. Presently, commuters have to switch from the Central Railway's (CR) mainline to the Thane-Vashi trans-harbour line.
Currently, there are two rail lines between Virar and Dahanu used by suburban and long distance trains. Additional lines between these stations will allow railways to segregate suburban and outstation trains, resulting in an increase in the number of local services besides improving punctuality. Since the corridor is on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad trunk route, the rail line is highly saturated owing to outstation and goods trains. The MUTP-3 has an estimated deadline of 2022.
Government agencies are entrusted with shifting people and acquiring land