Eye on state polls: Maharashtra CM pushes big-ticket projects, calls ‘war room’ for review

After delivering a landslide victory for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls in the state, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has now turned his focus on winning a second term in office.

With the Assembly polls due in October, Fadnavis on Monday convened a “war room” meeting to review the ongoing irrigation projects for Maharashtra and big-ticket transport infrastructure projects for urban areas. During the meeting, he asked senior officials to resolve the bottlenecks in implementation of these projects and expedite their completion.

The Chief Minister has set a September deadline for officials to complete the land acquisition and other procedural formalities for India’s first bullet train project to connect Mumbai to Ahmedabad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself been promoting the project.

“Private lands in 77 villages in Palghar district and another 22 villages in Thane are required for the project. On Monday, officials informed that acquisition was pending in about 12 of these villages, while the joint land measurement exercise had been completed to a large extent. The Chief Minister is keen to start construction work (for the Mumbai end) immediately after monsoon,” a senior official said.

Fadnavis also gave a go-ahead to use the ‘Swiss challenge’ method to hold the bidding for the ambitious hyperloop project between Pune and Mumbai. While Virgin Hyperloop One will be the original project proponent for the bid, global firms will be invited to challenge them under the method.

The project aims to bring travel time between Pune and Mumbai down to just 25 minutes.

Keen to perform bhoomipujan (groundbreaking ceremony) for a 10-kilometre test track for the project in July, Fadnavis on Monday directed officials to fast-track the process.

A smaller “war room” comprising officials from revenue, urban development, and housing department, and the CMO was also held on Monday to fast-track approvals to files related to ongoing Metro rail projects in Maharashtra.

Senior urban development officials were directed to clear proposals to change user in Aarey Colony for the construction of the ‘Metro Bhavan’, which will be the central monitoring control for all Metro rail systems. With a couple of Maharashtra Housing Area and Development Authority (MHADA) leased housing colonies affected by Metro rail development in the suburbs, a proposal to transfer MHADA’s right to the Mumbai Metropolitan Area Development Authority (MMRDA) is also under consideration, officials said.

Fadnavis has now set a December-2019 deadline for the commissioning of the Dahisar-DN Nagar Metro line and Dahisar East-Andheri East Metro Line. By 2022, the state has said, about 119 kilometre of the new Metro rail network will be in place, and another 169 kilometre would be under implementation.

Implementation of much-delayed irrigation projects, including the Goshikhurd project in Vidharbha, was also discussed in the meet.