Harbour-line extension turns race against time

Mumbai: The Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) is in a race against time to complete the harbour-line extension between Andheri and Goregoan. The deadline for this project has been set in March this year, but officials said that they have received possession of the disputed land only at the end of December 2016.

Officials have said that the work on the disputed 1-km stretch, between Jogeshwari and Goregaon had begun when it was handed over for possession on December 24. The illegal construction consisted of three shops — a video parlour, a watch store and a drinking bar. An official from the MRVC said, “We have to lay down the track to make important new and old cable connections related to signal and telecom, so currently it’s an uphill battle for us.” The official further added, “We are basically in a situation where we are giving it our best. There is also severe pressure from the railway ministry on us to finish projects whose deadlines we have announced earlier.”

This extension, when completed, will be able to ease crowds at peak hours between Andheri-Goregoan on the Western Railway (WR), on to the Harbour line. Currently the services run from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) to Andheri, and the extension to Goregoan was a part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) II. MRVC chief managing director Prabhat Sahai said, “We are going to finish the work well within the deadline and our people are taking all efforts to do so.”

Farzin Irani (25), who lives next to the newly-inaugurated Ram Mandir station, said, “I had been hearing about the reopening of Oshiwara station but it took the railways more than a decade to complete the work.” She further added, “The same goes for the extension to Goregaon, I am very hopeful that they will finish the work within the deadline, but if we go by experience, we have mostly been disappointed.”