Mumbai: Work on crowd-busting corridor kicks off

Passengers outside Kalyan junction station in April. Pic/Atul Kamble

There is finally some hope for crowding beyond Kalyan station, as the railways has begun work on the in-demand expansion on the third and fourth lines between Kalyan and Badlapur on Central Railway. While the railways has awarded tenders for construction works, the state government has initiated the process to acquire the required land for it.

The Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC) has awarded tenders for construction of bridges, approaches and other roads along with ancillary works. The total land required for the project is 13.62 hectares, including 10.45 hectares of private land and 3.16 hectares of government land.

"The existing two lines between Kalyan and Karjat are carrying mixed traffic of mail/ express, goods trains and also suburban services. The satellite towns and cities of Badlapur, Ambernath and Ulhasnagar need proper suburban rail connection for journeys to Kalyan and Mumbai," said a senior MRVC official.

The commuter traffic on these stations has increased by about 75 per cent since the pandemic days, shows statistics. Representation pic

The official added, "The present services are run with terminals at Ambernath, Badlapur, Karjat and Khopoli and cannot be increased due to saturation on Kalyan-Badlapur section. The new suburban corridor from Kalyan to Badlapur will enable augmentation of suburban rail services and will provide much-needed suburban rail connectivity to these towns and infrastructure for their development."

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The commuter traffic on these stations has increased by about 75 per cent since the pandemic days. There is a 45-minute gap between trains, which is a cause of major discomfort for commuters, mostly office-goers, who have been demanding ncreased services.

Due to overcrowding, Central Railway (CR) had to withdraw the AC local train introduced to Badlapur, as it was eating into non-AC local train's frequency. The official statistics show CR has seen a huge rise in the number of commuters between Badlapur and Karjat stations. Close to 2.4 crore people travelled from Badlapur in 2021-2022, up from around 1 crore in 2019-2020.

In Karjat, the number rose from 8.99 lakh in 2019-2020 to 20.56 lakh in 2021-2022. The footfall at Neral station has doubled, with 15.76 lakh passengers pre-pandemic to 30.38 lakh now. The 14-km-long corridor is being built under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project's phase 3A at a cost of Rs 1,510 crore.

Rs 1,510 cr
Approx cost of the project