The fast elevated corridors will be built connecting CST-Panvel, Bandra, Virar, Churchgate and Bandra. The fast elevated corridors will be built connecting CST-Panvel, Bandra, Virar, Churchgate and Bandra.

To expedite railway infrastructure projects in Maharashtra, the Union and state governments have decided to set up a new company with equal shareholding and it aims to complete most works in the next four years.

The new Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Company will implement nine railway infrastructure projects pegged at Rs 23,000 crore outside Mumbai. These include railway corridors between Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli-Vaijn -ath, Wardha-Nanded via Yavatmal-Pusad, Wadsa-Desai-ganj-Gadchiroli, Manmad-Indore, Pune-Nashik, Kolhapur-Vaibhavwadi, Gadchandur-Adilabad, Baramati-Lonand, and gauge conversion between Nagpur and Nagbhir.

Besides, the company will also help expedite several projects planned for Mumbai including the remodelling of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), construction of an elevated corridor between CST and Panvel, and Churchgate and Virar, rail connectivity between CST and Churchgate, improvements of stations across the state, an integrated ticketing system and so on.

On Thursday, Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu held a nearly three-hour-long meeting with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday to hammer out the details of the new company and set deadline for critical projects.

Fadnavis said the government has set a target of August 15 to start work on projects such as the CST-Panvel elevated corridor, an elevated corridor between Bandra and Virar and installation of a communication-based train control system between CST and Panvel on the harbour line to improve the frequency of locals to two minutes.

“The contribution of the central and state governments is already decided for individual projects. A company will help us pool in the equity, and raise dept so that we can look at aggressively investing to complete projects,” the CM added.

Prabhu said the articles of association and memorandum of association of the new company are ready.

“Registration of the company can happen in a day and it will start functioning within a month after the registration. Many of these projects have been pending for implementation since the past nearly twenty years. We thought a dedicated company will expedite them,” the railway minister said.

The most ambitious project that the company will steer is the remodelling of CST depicting seven forts – Raigad, Panhala, Sinhagad, Shivneri, Rajgad, Bhuikot and Janjira – of the Maratha kingdom and an equestrian statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji on top. The design, proposed to come up between platform number 18 of CST and P D’Mello Road, is largely to increase the holding capacity of the increasingly congested station.

The government also plans to construct an underground rail corridor to meet the proposed Azad Maidan Metro station of the fully-underground Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro line, which in turn will provide integration with the western railway suburban line at Churchgate.

The CST-Panvel elevated corridor will be a road as well as a rail corridor, and be constructed on a cash contract model, while the Churchgate-Virar elevated corridor will be constructed on a public private partnership model in two phases, with the first phase being from Bandra to Virar, officials said.

Prabhu and Fadnavis also discussed speeding up the introduction of an integrated ticketing system with which commuters will be able to travel with a single ticket on all modes of transport – Metro rail, monorail, suburban railway, bus as well as share taxis.

“Besides, we have also planned to equip 15 more stations with wifi in the next four months, upgrade of 40 stations in the state providing office space, malls, food courts, and installation of toilets at railway stations through corporate social responsibility,” the railway minister said.

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