What Mumbai gets from Rail Budget 2015: MUTP III, airconditioned train

Mumbai’s suburban railways often finds a mention in the Railway Budget and this year was no different, with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu announcing that the Indian Railways will take up the third phase of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) for the city which aims to improve existing train services.

The third phase of MUTP considers the development of a rail corridor between the northern suburbs of Panvel and Virar, a fast rail corridor on the harbour line of the city that links south Mumbai to the satellite town of Navi Mumbai. It also plans for the extension of harbour line services on Western Railways to Borivali instead of the existing Andheri.

Other things the MUTP plans is the creation of a third and fourth line between Kalyan and Kasara and additional lines between Kalyan and Karjat, and Borivali and Virar.

The third phase of the project was reportedly to have begun as far back as 2011 but has been stuck in red tape so far.

The Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation which is responsible for the project had estimated the cost of the project at Rs 52,000 crore and had said it would take until 2031 to complete it. However, it isn’t clear how much longer it would take given the delay in implementing it so far and how much more it could cost.

The Railway Minister also announced that the operation of the city’s first airconditioned train would begin soon.