Monorail in Mumbai

  

Five years after construction began, and after more than a year of rigorous trial runs, the country’s first monorail from Chembur to Wadala on Monday Jan 20,2014 received a final safety certification after a three-tier process, allowing the mass transit corridor to be opened for public use.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the implementing agency for the project, is now in the process of submitting the certification documents with the opening rules to the Maharshtra State Govt.

The Maharshtra State Govt will then decide when the monorail should be commissioned.

The MMRDA had appointed an independent safety auditor – Singapore’s SMRT Corp – for a safety audit of the monorail line, while the final review was to be done by a former chief commissioner of railway safety.

The MMRDA had planned a three-phase safety certification process for the Chembur-Wadala monorail, which will be the first phase of the 19.5-km Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle monorail corridor.

The much-awaited Mumbai monorail, India’s first, was thrown open for Mumbaiites from Sunday Feb 02,2014. The 8.8-km-long line between Wadala and Chembur was inaugurated by chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Saturday Feb 01,2014, ending the city’s 88-year wait for a new mode of public transport.

The service started at 7am from both stations. Initially, the monorail will be operational from 7am to 3pm at a frequency of 15 minutes. The operation hours and frequency will be increased after studying commuters’ response.

Note
Construction of the Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle monorail started in November 2008 and was originally expected to be completed in 2011. The entire 19.5-km corridor is being built at a cost of Rs 2,700 crore, which is now said to have increased due to the delay.

The contractor, a consortium of Larsen & Toubro and Malaysia’s Scomi Engineering, had appointed an independent auditor to conduct the first leg of safety checks.