Such a long journey

When George Fernandes took over as Railway Minister in 1989, he had famously said that Indian Railways has detailed standards for the transport of cattle and animals but none for its human passengers. Today even after 25 years, the situation has not changed. The starkest reminder of this reality is the jam-packed trains on the Mumbai suburban rail system. During peak hours, over 4,500 passengers travel in a nine-coach train, against a carrying capacity of 1,700.

The suburban rail system, serviced by three lines and spread over 465 km, operates 2,342 train services and carries 8 million passengers every day.

But these crowds are not just confined to trains; even public transport bodies, which run city buses, are overwhelmed by the masses.

A new and unknown dimension has been added to this cauldron with the commissioning of the first phase of the Mono and Metro rail lines.

Arun Mokashi, a former Transport Specialist with the World Bank, says that Indian Railways has failed to provide ample facilities for commuters in Mumbai’s metropolitan region. The lack of proper planning and poor capacity addition by Indian Railways have only worsened the daily commute to and fro for passengers.

The only breakthrough against the monopoly of Indian Railways was achieved by E Sreedharan, who championed the metro revolution. Because of him, planners and engineers have become confident that they can do away with Indian Railways’ participation in rail-based transport systems, says Mokashi.

The earliest plans for a metro service were conceived by TS Rao, former Chief Engineer of the erstwhile Bombay Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST), in the 1950s. After visiting Japan in 1956, he submitted a project for an underground railway system in Mumbai to BEST.

One of the phases of the project was a test line between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Churchgate railway station.

A Japanese firm had even offered to do the work without disturbing heavy traffic. But that plan never left the drawing board.

Rao even visited Europe to study rail systems there. He continued to pursue his dream of a metro for the city, but there were no takers.

But with the burgeoning problem of traffic congestion, the Maharashtra Government decided, in the early 2000s, to set up metro and mono rail systems for the city.

On June 22, 2006, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation for the first metro line, which was to be completed by 2011. The project faced enormous delays due to land acquisition issues and red tape from the Rail Ministry over crucial clearances for rail overbridges.

Finally, the line was opened to the public earlier this month (June 8) with Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan flagging off the first service from Versova Station in the Western suburbs.

For the citizens of Mumbai, the 11.4-km line may provide some relief from traffic, which they face while travelling from the Eastern to the Western suburbs. With this line the journey between Versova and Ghatkopar via Andheri, which usually takes about 90 minutes by road, will be reduced to 22 minutes. The line is designed to carry 600,000 commuters a day.

MMRDA Commissioner UPS Madan points out that the first line took a huge amount of time because it had to be built through a very congested part of Mumbai, with a sizeable slum population. Land had to be acquired from slumdwellers and they had to be rehabilitated in nearby areas.

In spite of the delays, MMRDA has completed infrastructure projects worth over ₹14,430 crore in the last five years and another ₹10,000 crore worth of projects are in progress. In addition, projects estimated to be worth ₹36,000 crore, including a new line for the metro, are on the drawing board, Madan said.

Travellers using the Versova-Ghatkopar metro line have provided mixed feedback. For Chartered Accountant Ashok Patel, who lives in Versova, the metro has provided relief from traffic and unscrupulous rickshaw drivers. But his easy and air-conditioned journey comes to an abrupt end when he lands in Andheri for the next leg of his journey to South Mumbai.

“Since both the metro and suburban railway stations are contiguous, the crowds flocking the station at peak hours in the morning and evening are humongous. It appears as if the city is in midst of civil war and people want to leave the city as soon as possible. It becomes very difficult to board the suburban trains, which are the lifeline of the city,” Patel said.

While lakhs flock to the metro, the first line of the Monorail, a trophy project for the MMRDA, has fallen on bad times. The line carries 14,000 to 15,000 passengers daily, well short of the projected number of 17,000-18,000.

The line connects Chembur in the Eastern suburbs with Wadala in the Central suburbs with an 8.26-km elevated track. It is supposed to act as feeder service to the suburban railway but at the Wadala end, it terminates at a deserted location. The closest railway stations are about 2-3 km from the Wadala monorail station, and this is a major deterrent for users, especially in the evening.

Mumbai’s Eastern Freeway became fully operational on June 16. It connects South Mumbai to the Eastern suburb of Ghatkopar. The 17-km-long freeway has considerably eased traffic jams in the city by cutting the driving time of 90 minutes by half.

It is a toll-free road meant only for four-wheelers. But it has taken seven years to build and ₹1,463 crore in costs. The elevated freeway was challenging as it involved construction of a tunnel through a small hill and creating an elevated road, the highest in the city (23 metres), at the Panjarpol junction in Ghatkopar.

For Chembur resident Anant Venkat, an executive with a multinational energy company, the elevated Eastern Freeway has greatly reduced his anxiety as he can reach his home in 40 minutes from his office in Churchgate to attend to his ageing mother.

Venkat says that the commuting time can be further reduced if illegal parking is curtailed at the Orange Gate, where the freeway terminates in South Mumbai.

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