RailEnquiry

MUMBAI: The Railway Board has refused permission to conduct a pre-feasibility study for the CST-Kalyan high-speed elevated corridor. The then railway minister, Dinesh Trivedi, had assured in his budget speech that a "pre-feasibility study for the 55km long CST-Kalyan elevated project is proposed to be undertaken in due course".

After the board approved the Churchgate-Virar elevated corridor on Western Railway (WR), Central Railway had also pitched for a similar project between CST and Kalyan in December 2011.

A senior CR official said, "Apart from the Churchgate-Virar elevated project to be executed by WR, the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation has also undertaken pre-feasibility study for CST-Panvel high-speed and Panvel-Vasai-Virar suburban corridor. Moreover, the additional fifth and sixth line is yet to be fully commissioned. Considering the slew of projects in the pipeline, the board is not convinced about the necessity of the CST-Kalyan elevated corridor at this point of time."

CR had planned to appoint the Rail Indian Technical and Economic Services (RITES) to carry out the survey for the project that could have cost Rs 16,500 crore.

The official said, "The reason behind the study was to identify the alignments along the 55-km route, location of stations and other infrastructural needs for the project. It would have also provided initial estimates of the cost involved in execution of the corridor, which will see trains plying with air-conditioned coaches."

CR officials are disappointed with the development. An official said, "The pre-feasibility study would not have cost more than Rs 10 crore. However, the elevated route is the only option left to expand the suburban service in Mumbai. There are days in monsoon when the entire system comes to a halt because of waterlogging at a few stretches."

The state government is keen on the project due to rapid development in the extended suburbs between Thane and Kalyan.

The peak hour load of passengers per coach may decline in the short term after 72 new rakes begin to get inducted in the railway fleet by 2015. Of these, half will be handed over to WR and some will be deployed on harbour as well as trans-harbour line.

The official said, "These are temporary measures but in the year to come, the only viable option to reduce the peak-hour load is for the elevated route. There is no space to lay an additional track to build capacity in future."