Monorail contractor owes it Rs 27 lakh,says BEST

“Our people have been in touch with them and the amount should be recovered in the next few days,” said O P Gupta,general manager of BEST.

BEST has rented out the space in January this year to house the rakes costing roughly Rs 11 crore each. “They asked us to extend the agreement once as per their requirement. Then they sought further extension till January next year,” Gupta said.

Larsen & Toubro and Scomi Engineering,members of the consortium constructing the monorail,were not available for comment.

The rakes are being kept at Anik Depot as the car shed being constructed on a six-hectare plot at Wadala is not yet ready. Two of the three monorail rakes that have arrived are being kept at Anik Depot,while one is in the car shed.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) plans to complete all civil work on the Chembur-Wadala monorail corridor by January,following which it will conduct trial runs. The MMRDA expects to commission the car shed on February 7.

“The car shed is about 70 per cent complete. The structural work is more or less done,now the finishing is left,” said P R K Murthy,in-charge of transport and communication at MMRDA. “The rakes would be shifted to the car shed once it’s fully completed,” Murthy added.

The first phase of the monorail route,an 8.26-kilometre-long track part of the Jacob Circle-Wadala-Chembur stretch,was originally scheduled to be completed by December 2010.