Now, metro from Colaba to airport
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has made a major change to the master plan of the metro in the city.
The idea is to allow commuters coming from Colaba to directly reach the domestic and international airport, and even the western and eastern suburbs.
According to the earlier plan, MMRDA was to construct a
underground third line of the metro running between Colaba and Bandra.
However, now we plan to combine this line with the BKC to Kanjurmarg line, which will go via the airport. The line will now be Colaba-Bandra-BKC-Sahar airport, metropolitan
commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad said. This line will cost the authority Rs15,000 crore and will be approximately 30km long.
Gaikwad added that though the airport to Kanjurmarg line is also on the cards, it is still being considered as a low priority corridor by the MMRDA.
The new Colaba-Bandra-BKC-Sahar airport line will also be running underground. We have finalised that the third line will run underground from Colaba to Mahalaxmi (approximately 10km) and it will again go underground between Bandra Kurla Complex and the airport, Gaikwad said.
As per the original plan, MMRDA was to construct the third line totally underground from Colaba to Bandra. However, out of the total projected cost of Rs12,000 crore, the viability gap itself was going up to Rs9,000 crore. This forced the authority to make the alignment partially underground.
The authority officials are working out the modalities of the model, Gaikwad said. Requests for Proposals (RFP) will be sought for the model by May this year. The viability gap for the project will be further reduced if we get a chance to commercially develop the underground station areas. We can avail financial assistance from the Centre if we can keep the viability gap lesser than 40%.
source: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_now-metro-from-colaba-to-airport_1337617