Ahead of the polls, there is little cheer for the floundering metro network in the city. In a cosmetic gesture, the government is set to perform the bhoomi pujan of the underground Colaba-Bandra-Airport-Andheri Seepz Metro III before the code kicks in though developers are still not in place. Metro II (Dahisar-Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd) may remain on paper, the government indicated, if the Centre does not give clearances like environmental go-ahead for a depot at Charkop. Moreover, despite an airport-to-airport metro link being part of the Navi Mumbai airport plan, the state has not moved beyond a proposal for a Santa Cruz-Andheri airport to Mankhurd metro that Cidco, the nodal planning authority for Navi Mumbai, can stretch to the Panvel airport.
CM Prithviraj Chavan said the new airport project need not wait for the airport-to-airport connectivity. While approving the Panvel airport tender recently , the Centre had mandated simultaneous development of transport connectivity , such as the metro, the trans-harbour link and passenger water transport.
For Metro II, separate tenders for an underground metro would be floated, said sources, when asked if the earlier elevated track deal had been scrapped. “Second metro will go underground,” confirmed Chavan.
The government had announced its metro programme in 2005 with a promise to create a 62 km network in the first phase in 10 years.In 2014, only 12 km of network is ready and there’s no sign of another route coming up in the next six-seven years.
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