Mumbai: Delayed Monorail chokes under dust four days before being operational

With just four days for it to be operational after missing more than a dozen deadlines, Monorail phase 2 paints a shabby picture of itself with dust and squatters.

On Tuesday, when DNA correspondent visited stations along the second phase, many of them were found shut, while a couple of staircases of the stations were found occupied by a few people. In some stations, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) was carrying out cleaning and repair work to make them usable for commuters.

The Wadala Bridge Monorail station was found occupied by a family who has made the staircase it’s home. Many stations had their dusty shutter down indicating that they were yet to be cleaned.

On Saturday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who is also the chairman of MMRDA is expected to inaugurate the second phase between Wadala and Jacob Circle, the commercial operations for which is expected to start from Sunday. The construction work for Monorail started in 2008, and the first phase between Chembur and Wadala started its operations in February 2014.

Meanwhile, an MMRDA official said, “Work on cleaning the stations, installing or repairing required civil structures including automatic fare collection gates and public information displays is underway. All the stations will be ready for commercial operations before Sunday.”

“Also, those who are obstructing or causing hindrance to the operational area of Monorail will be moved away. Once the stations are in use, the security staff will ensure that the stations are not encroached upon. The stations are ready since 2016, but operations didn’t start. Thus, they are in such a messy condition,” added the official.

Lastly, ever since Monorail started its operations in 2014, it has been under controversy over technical glitches, non-functional trains and a fire incident of November 2017. In 2015, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had come down heavily on MMRDA over the construction of Monorail citing several fallacies in the project execution.