MRVC to be set up in two months

These are the last few steps before the MRVC can finally embark on its task of implementing the Rs 4741 crore project under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project MUTP-II over the next five years.

Headed by a Chairman who will be a senior railway official, the MRVC is to be governed by a 11-member board of directors including six representatives from the railways, three from the state government and two NGOs.

The budgetary provision in 1998-99 for major suburban projects had already been increased from Rs 66.47 crore last year to Rs 159.34 crore from Rs 66.47crore. A further increase could be expected in these funds in the railway budget that would be presented on February 25.

The minister once again struck down the possibility of having an underground metro rail in the city, a feasibility study of which is being undertaken by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation MSRDC. 8220;A metro in Mumbai is not economically and financially feasible,8221; he said. Such projects proved to be capital intensive and non-remunerative. When there was enough land available on the surface, it was a waste of meagre resources to go underground, he said.

Naik said that talks for funding half the rail component of the Rs 4741 crore MUTP-II were in their final stages with the World Bank. However, if the bank did not finance the project then the expenses would be shared between the Railways and the state government.

He said the Railways had the responsibility of completing several ongoing projects. It had now been decided to prioritise projects which could be completedearly and which would be remunerative. Projects like those in the North-East and Kashmir were unremunerative but socially desirable8217; and hence a 15 per cent allocation was being made for them in the Ninth Five Year Plan.

The Railways needed a whopping Rs 39,000 crore to complete all the unfinished projects all over the country whereas it had an allocation of just Rs 9,000 crore in the current Five Year plan.

Today8217;s meet which basically showcased Naik8217;s achievements as the minister of state for railways in the last 10 months was attended by Chairman of the Legislative Council N S Pharande, senior BJP leader Jaywantiben Mehta, MLA Kirit Somaiya, Western Railway General Manager V D Gupta and Central Railway General Manager K B Shankaran.

Referring to the recent controversy over the renaming of Kurla terminus after Lokmanya Tilak, the minister termed it as an unfortunate debate8217;.

Speakers showered praise on Naik for speedy implementation of various projects including cabinet approval for MRVC,extension of suburban services to Panvel and installation of more computerised season ticket windows and ticket vending machines.

On Sunday, Naik inaugurated the eighth computerised reservation centre on the Mumbai suburban section of the Western Railway at Vasai Road railway station.

The reservation centre, built at a cost of Rs 38.82 lakh, also includes two new counters for issuing computerised season tickets for any station on the suburban sections of Western and Central Railway.

Naik said new computerised passenger reservation centres would be opened shortly at Malad, Bandra Terminus, Palghar and Dadar railway stations.