Mumbai diary: Indian Navy to get its largest dry dock

Navy to get its largest dry dock

The Indian Navy is all set to get its largest dry dock, which has a capacity to accommodate three ships, including aircraft carrier, later this week. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will dedicate it to the nation. This is the first dry dock in the country which is built in water. It was a challenging task as it required a complete reorientation of design and materials. Huge blocks of concrete had to be first made on the shore and then taken to water and fixed into the rocks. Five lakh tonnes of concrete or the 1.5 times of the concrete used for the Bandra-Worli sea link has gone into making of this `1,000 crore worth of dock.

IIT-B develops system to predict floods

IIT-Bombay professors, who had developed a city flood warning system after 2015 floods in Chennai, are now developing a similar system for Mumbai. The system analyses information on weather, high-low tide timings, water levels of lakes, rivers and other water bodies to forecast floods six to 72 hours in advance. A team of 30 scientists have developed the system in 18 months. It predicted 80 percent of floods correctly when it was fed with 2015 data. An article on the system was recently published in the international journal “Current Science”. The system has been handed over to the national coastal research centre and will undergo several more tests over next year before being put to regular use, the scientists from IIT-Bombay said.

Birth rate in the city shows slight decline

The birth rate – live births per thousand people – has declined marginally in Mumbai. In 2018-19, the city had birth rate of 11.83, down from 12.14 in 2017-18 and 12.05 in 2016-17. The report states that infant mortality rate – deaths per 1,000 live births of children under one year – in the city has also gone down to 24.63 in 2018-19 from 26.33 in 2017-18 and 26.14 in 2016-17. The data is part of the soon-to-be-released environmental status report of the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The city has population density of 26,453 per sq km, the data shows.

Panvel-Vasai local services soon?

For the much needed east-west connectivity, the Mumbai Rai Vikas Corporation (MRVC), is exploring the possibility of running a local train between Panvel on harbor line and Virar on the Western line on suburban Mumbai section. Currently Mainline Electircal Multiple Unit (MEMU) trains are being run between Virar and Diwa on Central line. The Diwa-Panvel line is being used only for long distance and goods trains. MEMU trains are also being run between Virar and Dahanu. MRVC, at a recent meeting, discussed plans to convert all the MEMU to EMU (locals) and extending it. Laying two additional lines between Virar and Panvel and starting local services is a project which has been pending for over a decade. Following the recent discussions, the project is likely to get a move-on, a senior official said.

Abhijit Mulye
Our correspondent in Maharashtra
abhijit.mulye@gmail.com