Centre urges Maha to reconsider plan to shift Metro car shed to Kanjurmarg

The MoHUA in its letter on March 17 said that it would not be a prudent decision to shift the location of car shed

The central government has requested the Maharashtra government to reconsider its decision of shifting the Metro car shed from Aarey Colony to Kanjurmarg. The ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) in its letter has referred to reports conducted by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and SYSTRA, a consultant appointed by MMRDA, that point out technical difficulties in daily operation of Metro 3 and 6 lines if the car depot if shifted to Kanjurmarg.

The project is already inordinately delayed and it is expected that there will be further delay in the project if uncertainties continue, the letter said. (Pratik Chorge/Hindustan Times)

The MoHUA in its letter on March 17 said that it would not be a prudent decision to shift the location of car shed when the project is in a significant advance stage and combined depot plans would bring operational and maintenance bottlenecks in the daily functioning.

“In this background and findings in the DMRC report, the GoM is requested to reconsider their decision to shift the Depot of Line 3 from Aarey Colony to Kanjurmarg. GoM is requested to allow restart of the depot work of Line 3 at Aarey Colony for expeditious completion of the project of public interest with due exploration of possible optimization in the present plans of Depot at Aarey itself. The project is already inordinately delayed and it is expected that there will be further delay in the project if uncertainties continue. This project is much awaited to solve the traffic problem of Mumbaikars to a considerable extent,” states the letter written by Sunil Kumar, under secretary, MoHUA.

DMRC has recorded their own experience that inducting trains from the depot consistently at a frequency of four minutes continuously for three or more hours is a challenging task. There is a compromised time of maintenance window due to running of Line 3 trains for 7.5 km on Line 6 network upto Kanjurmarg. This will have an adverse impact on restoration time in the event of failure of Line 3 trains during the regulation operation period, it pointed out.

“DMRC and SYSTRA both agree that the above constraints are inherited with the integrated depot for the present respective layout of two given Line 3 and Line 6. Ideally, lines should be catered with individual depots. As MRTS projects are massive projects in terms of cost, infrastructure and impact, decisions should be taken duly considering long term viability and sustainability. As analysed by SYSTRA integration of Line 3 and Line 6 is feasible with above listed constraints. Thus, the proposed integration of two lines at Seepz village station will be a permanent risk to reliable train operations of both the lines,” it states further.

As the land at Aarey is sufficient and to meet the current as well as design life traffic requirements up to year 2055, it would not be prudent decision to shift location of the car shed to Kanjurmarg on the premise particularly when the project is in a significantly advanced stage of completion… Further, the land at Aarey is free from all the encumbrances whereas the land at Kanjurmarg is under multiple litigation. In fact, legal challenges, which were primarily on environment concerns for setting the depot at Aarey, have already been settled by the higher courts including Hon’ble Supreme Court and as of now there are no legal impediments at the original site, it suggested.