Development body in talks with CSIA

“We recently had a meeting about this and till now their response has been positive,” an official at the MMRDA said. “The cost of three stations would be about Rs 700 crore,” he added.

The Colaba-Bandra-Seepz corridor,the city’s third metro line,would be a fully underground line of about 33 kilometers with 27 stations. The cost of the corridor is estimated at Rs 16,180 crore. The MMRDA is planning to construct the car depot for the line at Aarey Milk Colony.

The authorities at the CSIA have put forward certain conditions in front of the development body for the corridor. The first being that the metro line should run round-the-clock as there are many international flights scheduled for odd hours and the second,a provision for a check-in facility at stations. “Their requests are genuine,but it would be difficult to run the metro line 24/7,” the MMRDA official said. “Even for the check-in facility,it is easier to implement such a system on a metro line that has fewer stations.”However,the official said the MMRDA will examine these conditions and see how these could be implemented.

The MMRDA is currently in talks with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to fund the metro corridor and is expecting their team to arrive in Mumbai within the next two months for the next round of discussions. “The social impact and economic impact assessment studies are also underway and we expect to have the details before the JICA team’s visit,” the official said.