Virar - Alibaug Multi Modal Corridor update

The land acquisition process for the Virar-Alibaug Multi Modal Corridor has begun with Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) initiating the documentation process with the urban development department. The plan is to have seven growth centres at Virar, Bhiwandi, Kalyan, Dombivli, Panvel, Taloja and Uran.
“The project will be a crucial step towards development and creating job opportunities at these growth centres. Work has also begun to widen roads in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region at the Bhivpuri-Karjat belt, which will eventually help in connecting the Multi Modal Corridor,” said an MMRDA official.
However, currently, the state is in a fix about which law to adopt to start taking possession of 1,250 hectares of land needed to implement the project. When the project was first conceptualised in 2008, the consensus among state officials was that Land Acquisition Act, 1894 would be followed. But now, they have not been able to decide after Union government’s Land Acquisition Act, 2013 came into effect on January 1 this year. “We have referred the issue for legal opinion... on which law is applicable for the project,” said UPS Madan, metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA. The estimated cost for land acquisition has been pegged at Rs.1,838 crore. Moreover, the state has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of the Republic of Korea for the preparation of a master plan to develop the eastern parts of Mumbai Metropolitan Region along the Virar-Alibaug Multi Modal Corridor. Despite the legal issue that has come to light, MMRDA has already started focussing on the development growth centres, the first of which will be in Kalyan.
The other growth centres will be taken up at a later stage in the coming years depending upon the progress of the project. As per the present plan, the Rs.12,975-crore corridor will not be constructed right from Virar to Alibaug initially; but as part of the first phase, it will be implemented between the 79 km route between Virar and Chirner (Rs.9,326 crore). The balance 47 km between Chirner to Alibaug (Rs.3,649 crore) will be constructed at a later stage.