Work on new Harbour rail flyover begins.

Work on sixth line between Mumbai Central and Borivli, coming under the prime minister's office-monitored Pragati projects, has started showing visible changes on the ground. Almost after a decade of indecision, work on almost all the stretches of the sixth line has kicked off. The most important among them — building of a new and longer Harbour line rail flyover between Khar and Bandra — has now started in right earnest.

Labourers on Tuesday afternoon were busy with work along the eastern fringe of the Bandra-Navpada-Kabrastan area, making a mud foundation for the pillars and ramp for the flyover. The flyover, 886-m long being built at a cost of Rs36 crore, will allow leeway to the Western Railway to create space for a fifth and sixth line between Bandra and Khar. The current flyover and its pillars are too close for any space for the two new lines, said officials.

The flyover will also allow those living in townships along the tracks access to the kabrastan, something that the fifth line, hurriedly built by the WR between Khar and Bandra, had blocked. The opposition from locals meant that this stretch of the fifth line never took off. The ramp of the new flyover is being built at the same spot after uprooting the fifth line.
Once the flyover is complete, the two Harbour line tracks currently in use will become the fifth and sixth lines. 'This will mean that WR will have four lines to run suburban trains and two lines — fifth and sixth — to run long-distance trains. Plus, two lines as Harbour lines on the flyover.

Currently, WR runs its long-distance trains on a line called the Suburban Train Avoidance track (also called the fifth line) on which trains can run in both directions. Since this fifth line is missing between Santa Cruz and Mahim, there is pressure on suburban lines,' explained a WR official.

As first reported by dna on January 14, one of the railways' most ambitious projects in Mumbai — the Rs918 crore work to have a sixth rail line between Mumbai Central and Borivli — has been included in the list of projects that will be directly monitored by the prime minister's office (PMO) under the Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation (PRAGATI) scheme.

The scheme comprises a three-tier monitoring mechanism — the PMO, the union secretaries and state chief secretaries — to fast track important development projects. The construction department of WR has so far spent Rs. 140 crore out of the Rs.918 crore earmarked for it.

DNA