‘Time to give up hopes about Mumbai metro’, say Twitter users as Managing Director Ashwini Bhide is removed

An IAS officer of 1988 batch, Bhide was very active on social media and used to post progress of the metro corridor.

A day after the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government ousted Ashwini Bhide as the managing director of the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC), Mumbaikars used the hashtag #GetAshwiniBhideBack on Twitter to express their disappointment over the decision.

Ashwini Bhide was very active on social media. (Twitter/@MumbaiMetro3)

MMRC is executing the fully-underground Metro-3 (Colaba-Bandra-Seepz) project in Mumbai. Bhide has been at the helm of the project since 2015 and had become the face of the project.

Noted television actor Sumeet Raghavan tweeted, “All metro projects are extremely important for Mumbai and mumbaikars but @MumbaiMetro3 is the spine of Mumbai and this transfer was the last thing to we wanted. Instead of boosting the morale of officers this is what they get..#GetAshwiniBhideBack.” Raghavan tagged Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and state tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray.

Noted music composer Kaushal Inamdar tweeted, “Time to give up hopes about metro I guess. Even if Mr Deol is efficient, Ashwini Bhide knew the project by the back of her hand. Never break up a winning combination (sic).”

Many users also thanked Bhide for her work.

An IAS officer of 1988 batch, Bhide was very active on social media and used to post progress of the 33-km metro corridor.

On Tuesday, the government appointed Ranjit Singh Deol as the new managing director of MMRC. Deol was serving as the vice chairman and MD of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation.

The reshuffle comes just a week after the Maharashtra government transferred 22 IAS officers.

Last week, Bhide was elevated to the post of principal secretary. However, during the reshuffle, she has not been given any other charge.

MMRC’s decision to cut more than 2000 trees in the middle of the night in October 2019 for the metro car-shed had outraged many activists, who had sought Bhide’s transfer. Even Aaditya Thackeray had demanded her ouster then.

Thackeray government’s first major decision after taking office was to stop the car-shed work in Aarey.

A release from MMRC recently mentioned that 100 per cent tunneling work of the project will be completed by September this year.

Apart from this, the Corporation hopes to complete 70 per cent of civil work and get the first rolling stock by December 2020, MMRC said in a statement.