After dispute over fare hike, there appears to be more conflict brewing between the state government and the MMOPL.

While the much awaited the Mumbai Metro was thrown to open on Sunday with chief minister Prithviraj Chavan inaugurating it after a dispute over a proposed fare bike, he reiterated his warning that the service must bear the name Mumbai Metro, not Reliance Metro.

"It is the Mumbai Metro and we will ensure that it remains the same in future also," said Chavan when asked about the private consortium posting its branding in some places with the name 'Reliance Metro' appearing at a few metro stations.

"Though there is a dispute about the fare, we have already moved to court against the proposed hike. We want the issue to be raised before the tariff fixation committee," Chavan added. For the next one month, the provisional fare will be Rs 10 for for a one-way journey. The state government is against the proposed fare of Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 30 by the MMOPL and want it to be Rs 9, Rs 11, Rs 13 respectively.

The service was launched at Versova Metro station by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, along with ADAG chairman Anil Ambani and his wife Tina Ambani on Sunday morning. Other politicians present included deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, ministers Jayant Patil, Naseem Khan and newly elected BJP MPs Poonam Mahajan, Kirit Somaiya and Gopal Shetty.

With this service, the journey on the 11.4-km Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar stretch will reduce to 20 minutes, which normally takes around 90 minutes by road due to heavy traffic congestion.

The Metro service will start at 5.30 am and continue till midnight with a total of 16 rakes deployed on the sector at a speed of 80 kmph. Each of the colourful rakes with four coaches will have a capacity of around 1,500 commuters per service.

This is India's first metro railway project implemented on a public-private partnership model by a consortium headed by RInfra since 2007, at a total cost of around Rs.4,300 crore.

The metro service comes four months after the city got the country's first monorail from Chembur and Wadala on February 1 this year.