OCTOBER 13: The World Bank mission on MUTP II, the integrated transport project for the city, has suggested further streamlining of the project components. Accordingly, a few of the rail and road projects might have to be dropped or excluded from the first phase implementation of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP II), it is learnt. The much vaunted conveyor-belt walkaway between Churchgate and CST was also found unacceptable under MUTP by the WB mission, said sources.The mission which was in the city last week to study the ground work for the implementation of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP II) has suggested that optimisation of the harbour lines be dropped from the project considering the mass of encroachments and hutments lining the tracks. This, coupled with a phased construction of the Bandra-Kurla rail link would reduce the loan component for the rail projects from Rs 5000 crore to Rs 2800 crore, it was suggested.The mission has also found a couple of road overbridges in suburbslike Dahisar and Borivali, as well as the western relief road from Bandra to be uneconomical and has suggested more studies on them, say official sources. About the road overbridges they have suggested that the local authorities take them up for construction. The total outlay for the road projects would then be around Rs 1000 crore, say transport planners.However, the state government would insist on all the rail projects to be included in the first phase and ask for a Rs 5000 crore loan for the railways, said principal secretary Urban Development, K Nalinakshan. The state expects the WB to forward 65 per cent of the more than Rs 6000 crore MUTP scheme.About the Bandra-Kurla rail link, the WB mission has apparantly suggested that the first phase of the project be restricted to the construction of the rail links at the two end points, where the second phase would take up the construction of the linkway. ``It all depends upon the loan raising capability of the state,'' said an official, ``since therailways have also suggested that the construction of the EMU rakes will be done locally, the costs would further reduce''.Similarly, since the WB mission felt it would be difficult to remove the encroachments - numbering to around 7000 - along the harbour lines, the project for optimisation of services might as well wait, they said. The mission has also found fault with the formation of a private body for the Mumbai Urban Rehabilitation Project (MURP) which was to have depended heavily on private enterprise for rehabilitation of the project affected people. The WB experts have now suggested that the state government be more directly involved with the rehabilitation.``Accordingly we are working out a blueprint,'' said Nalinakshan, ``on the lines of the construction undertaken for the earthquake affected in Latur,''.The entire exercise of preliminary works on the MUTP-II would take at least nine more months. The WB mission is expected to put forward its report to the Board of Directors forsanctioning the loans. ``We are expecting MUTP to begin in mid September 1999, of course the rehabilitation under the MURP will begin earlier''.
