Metro, monorail halt good ol' train

MMRDA wants to cancel proposed Bandra-Kurla suburban rail route, as second line of metro will connect the two stations anyway

New-age transportation systems like the monorail and the metro have started to take precedence over the old suburban railway. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) wants to cancel a 10-year-old proposal of the suburban railways to connect the Bandra and Kurla railway stations through the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC). The reason given by the MMRDA is that the under-construction second line of the metro is already set to connect the two.
However, the MMRDA may face trouble with its plan. The 5,000 sq m plot reserved for construction of the suburban railway line comes under the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ). "An additional permission of the state urban development department will be needed if we have to make a change of reservation," the proposal said.
According to the MMRDA's proposal, a copy of which is available with DNA, the original plan of the BKC talked about connecting the Bandra and Kurla stations by a line of the suburban railway.
"However, the railways has not been able to finalise a detailed alignment of the proposed railway route," said the MMRDA proposal. "Moreover, the proposal to include this alignment in the Mumbai Urban Transport Project-II has also been dropped. The MMRDA has undertaken work for the metro on the route. This metro will run through the BKC and connect the Bandra and Kurla stations. Hence, we are proposing to cancel the said reservation for the construction of a rail route connecting the two railway stations."
BJP corporator Ashish Shelar, who also is a member of the MMRDA, said the authority's proposal was necessary, as it needed extra land for revenue. "One must remember that a 5,000 sq m plot had been reserved for an electric supply station for the Bandra-Kurla suburban line," he said while speaking with DNA. "In contrast, only a 790 sq m plot would be needed for the electric sub-station that would supply power to the upcoming second line of the metro passing through the BKC. If the suburban railway route is cancelled, the rest of the plot can be commercially exploited."