07 January,2018 07:46 PM IST | Mumbai | Ranjeet Jadhav
The much awaited Monorail phase II between Jacob circle and Wadala which was expected to be thrown open for commuters by January 26 might face a delay in the opening as Mumbai metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) IS in process of submitting the final documents to the Commissioner of Railway Safety(CRS) post which the inspection would begin before giving final certificate to start the services.
Additional Metropolitan Commissioner Sanjay Khandare said," We are in process of submitting the final documents to CRS by 10-12 January post which they will let us know the details about their inspection. Once we get the final certificate from them , the line will be thrown open for the public at the earliest."
sources from MMRDA told this newspaper that the process of approaching the CRS has already started in the month of September 2017 and then the MMRDA officials were expecting that the Jacob Circle- Wadala monorail Phase- II would begun by December 2017 . However the same could not happen as the last minutes submissions to the CRS are in progress. MMRDA will have to conduct a 3000 km successful trail run before the CRS to get the final certificate.
There were also talks that the line might be thrown open on Independence Day but the sources told this newspaper that given the strict measures that are followed during inspection and as the monorail services have been in negative news due to several issues including some technical issues and the fire mishap in the month of September 2017 , the CRS will be doing a thorough check including all the aspects before giving final clearance.
It should be noted that already the monorail services on phase-I between Wadala and Chembur have been suspended following the fire that charred its two coaches at Mysore colony station since September 9 and it was also saiad that the phase-I will be thrown along with the Phase-II but if there is a delay in getting the CRS certificate for Phase II , the MMRDA will start the Phase-I .
"If there is a delay in getting CRS certificate for Phase ii , we will open the Phase-II before it," said an MMRDA official
Because of no services on the phase-I corridor , MMRDA is facing an average revenue loss of Rs 5 lakh per day .It's been around 118 days that the services on Wadala-Chembur monorail phase-I have been suspended and if we take the average loss of Rs 5 lakh then the amount of loss till date is Rs 5.90 crore.
While the Jacob circle to Wadala monorail phase I monorail corridor is the one that has been in bad news because of the technical issues that the services has been facing , with the opening of the phase II the ridership along the entire corridor is expected to increase which will help in recovering the losses that the phase I has been witnessing.
The added advantage monorail phase-2 is that it will pass through the highly populated areas of central Mumbai including Wadala , parel , lower parel , chinchpokli , Delisle road and then reach Jacob Circler and this would help the authorities in recovering some loses that the monorail has been facing due to less rider ship.
At present 15-17 thousand people travel on phase-1 and the number of the readership is expected to double once the entire phase is operational. It should be noted that already the monorail phase-2 have missed 12 deadlines and the latest deadline to complete the entire work by December 2017.
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