High-speed corridor to link airports

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is planning to link two airports by constructing a 40 km long high-speed metro corridor (HSMC) between Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) metro station in Mumbai and the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA).

A senior MMRDA official confirmed the development. “The state government is quite keen on the project of connecting the two airports. We will have to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) for the high-speed metro corridor. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is likely to be given the task of preparing the DPR.”

A proposal on the corridor has also been sent to the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco). “We have communicated the same to Cidco to help MMRDA for the same. The initial plan is that MMRDA will construct the corridor in the Mumbai limits and the Cidco will construct the corridor in the Navi Mumbai limits,” added the senior official.

According to the initial plan, the CSIA metro station is going to act as an interchange metro station for the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro-3 corridor and the Andheri east- Dahisar east Metro-7 corridor. “The plan is to construct an interlink so that one can reach Navi Mumbai airport from the north end or south end of Mumbai by changing the metro at CSIA metro station. Anticipating the future need, there may be a scenario that a few international and domestic carriers may only land at say Mumbai or Navi Mumbai airport to decrease the traffic at one particular airport. In this case high-speed metro corridor will help the travellers,” the MMRDA official added.

According to MMRDA officials only after the detailed study and preparing the DPR can there be any clarity on whether the corridor will be an elevated or underground one. One of the major challenges for both the MMRDA and Cidco will be funds for the project, as the high-speed metro corridor will be an expensive task compared to other metro corridors.

In 2014, Prithviraj Chauhan, then MMRDA chairman, had also shown keen interest on the plan of connecting the two airports via metro. However, the metro line will have to be included in the master plan for the metro rail network, which the MMRDA plans to update this year.