Only 38 lakh commuters used Mumbai Monorail in a year

Exactly a year after the Mumbai Monorail was inaugurated, it has been found that only around 38 lakh commuters have used it — just 10% of its estimated ridership

Exactly a year after the Mumbai Monorail was inaugurated, it has been found that only around 38 lakh commuters have used it — just 10% of its estimated ridership of 3.60 crore. HT accessed the data between March 4, 2019, and February 11, 2019, using the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

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On March 3, 2019, Maharashtra’s former chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, had inaugurated phase-2 (between Chembur-Jacob Circle) of the monorail, post which operations began the next day. At the time of inauguration, it was estimated that the monorail will have a ridership of 30 lakh a month.

According to the data, the highest ridership on the monorail has been in its inaugural month, at 5.55 lakh. In January 2020, only 2.75 lakh people travelled on the 19.5-km corridor. The data revealed that the monorail, run by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), has earned ₹7.29 crore in a year.

The maximum earnings were recorded in March 2019 when the monorail generated a revenue of ₹96.29 lakh. In January 2020, it earned ₹55.52 lakh.

RA Rajeev, metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA said, “30 lakh ridership a month can be achieved only when we have 10 rakes with a headway of five minutes. We cannot achieve the desired ridership till we have the minimum number of rakes.”

Mumbai Monorail has floated a global tender to procure 10 rakes. This is the second bid by MMRDA for procuring 10 additional rakes for monorail. A tender floated in 2019 was cancelled as the bidder asked for many deviations, MMRDA claimed.

AV Shenoy, a transport expert from Mumbai Vikas Samiti, said that the new state government must take some hard decisions on the project, which has turned into a white elephant. He said, “The state government must appoint an expert committee, which will assess the way forward with this project. The committee must assess if this project should continue at all or if there are any alternatives that can be looked at.”