9.2.19

Mumbai Monorail to start with new fares

Monorail services on the entire Chembur-Jacob Circle corridor will commence from March 2019, as MMRDA said it will get two more rakes after spare parts arrived from Malaysia. The services will operate with revised fares.

MMRDA, which took over operations from Larsen & Toubro-Scomi Engineering in December 2018, will operate services on the 20 km corridor with five rakes. Service on the 8.8 km route (Chembur-Wadala) operated with three rakes.

MMRDA joint project director (public relations) Dilip Kawathkar said, “Monorail services will resume in the first week of March, as we will take at least 20 days to get the two rakes ready.”

The 112 components, worth Rs.3 crore, arrived at JNPT last week, but both Scomi Engineering and MMRDAs laid claim to them. Finally, MMRDA convinced Customs officials that even though the parts were ordered by Scomi, they were meant for operations of its monorail.

Scomi had received seven extensions, before which the system first opened on a truncated route of 8.8 (phase I) between Chembur-Wadala on February 2, 2014.

Monorail chief operating officer D L N Murthy said, “It will operate from 6 am-10 pm when the entire phase begins. We will run trains at a 20-minute frequency; 130 will run between Jacob Circle-Chembur. We expect a lakh ridership daily, compared to 15,000-17,000 daily earlier.” There were 130 services on the truncated route too. Murthy said, “Frequency will increase when we get more rakes. MMRDA will float global tenders for 10 rakes.” The new fare slabs will be Rs.10, Rs.20, Rs.30 and Rs.40 in phase II.

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