Mumbai: Metro back at Aarey, needs 2 years to finish

MUMBAI: Legal and political battles have left a lasting impact on Mumbai’s showpiece underground metro line, delaying the project by years and piling on costs. When the previous Fadnavis administration decided to locate the metro’s car shed inside the green Aarey belt, it was a move that horrified environmentalists and unleashed a chain of petitions.‘Save Aarey’ became a rallying cry echoed by the Shiv Sena, which found the issue resonated with the middle class. The Bombay high court, however, gave the government a go-ahead, provided environment and ecology were safeguarded and “no commercial use permitted.”
When Uddhav Thackeray broke away from the BJP and formed a coalition with secular allies in November 2019, one of his first decisions as chief minister was to shift the car shed from Aarey and find an alternative site. Though moving the depot out of Aarey was hailed by many concerned about protecting green spaces—over 2,000 trees were on the chopping block—it spelled disaster for a mass transit line meant to connect the suburbs to south Mumbai. Over the past 2.5 years under the MVA regime, project cost has escalated from Rs 23,136 crore to Rs 33,406 crore and the deadline is still two years away.

The Thackeray government’s dithering on the car shed site has led to delays and massive cost escalations. It was unable to kickstart work at a new site in Kanjurmarg due to litigation but unwilling to back down and find a mitigating plan for Aarey. In October 2020, after the collector transferred 102 acres at Kanjurmarg to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) for the depot, the Centre claimed ownership rights over the land and the high court stayed the collector’s order. Another petition filed by developer Mahesh Garodia, also staking ownership over part of the land, further complicated matters. Since December 2020, the Centre’s petition and the MMRDA plea to vacate the stay have been pending despite efforts by the court to get both sides to settle amicably.
The case was to be listed on Friday (July 1) before a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni. But on Thursday, counsel Rui Rodrigues for the Salt Commissioner (the central agency which claims ownership) and Saket Mone for the MMRDA sought an adjournment for four weeks by consent. The bench smilingly remarked that the issue may now be sorted out.
According to initial targets, phase I from Aarey to BKC was supposed to be ready by December 2021 and phase II from BKC to Cuffe Parade by June 2022. Officials now claim that three-fourths of the project is complete, but with the Kanjurmarg site proving to be a non-starter and the Aarey car shed barely one-fourth done, the line may not be commissioned until 2024. Meanwhile, land acquisition cost has drastically increased—from the original estimate of Rs 590 crore to Rs 1,483 crore. The bigger impact on cost is in the construction of the tunnel, stations and car depot. Initially pegged at Rs 10,708 crore, the revised estimate is Rs 18,711 crore. Officials said the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC), which oversees the 33.5 km Metro 3 rail corridor, has already spent around Rs 19,000 crore, mostly funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
On February 17, 2021, the Japanese ambassador to India, Suzuki Satoshi, wrote to the then CM, expressing fears of an impending “cash crunch” and “significant delay or stagnation” for the project. Satoshi’s letter requested him to approve the revised project cost for the fourth tranche of the loan so that the JICA can release the money. “During JICA’s detailed fact-finding mission with MMRC, conducted from December 2020 to January 2021, it was recognized that there is a real possibility for MMRC to face fund shortage within the next fiscal year (FY2021) if the additional loan cannot be provided by end of this fiscal (FY2020),” said the ambassador’s letter.
Now with the new government shifting the car shed back to Aarey, officials said the project could still take two years to complete.