Mumbai's Sixth Rail Corridor Plan revived

Mumbai can have a new rail corridor between Wadala and CST without having to spend much and not bothering about acquring land for the project. It can utilise the lines of the Mumbai Port Trust (MPT) railwayThe plan, called the Sixth Rail Corridor, was first mooted by the railways 40 years ago to augment its five-city rail corridors. A detailed project report was also prepared then. Now, it has been revived and forwarded to the government. Ajgaonkar, who also served the railways as the principal chief engineer in 1992, said the plan was simple. There are two branched corridors on the harbour line—one between Wadala and Panvel (40 km) and the other Wadala and Andheri (12 km). Both these corridors merge into the Wadala-Mumbai CST line (9 km). These routes cannot be utilised to full capacity as both lines merge into one. A new corridor can be carved out by using the Mumbai Port Trust railway tracks from Wadala to Indira Docks (St Georges Hospital).This MBT line is not utilised for any major freight during the day and should not pose a problem if right of way was given to the railways.He also suggested that an underground corridor can be built from St Georges Hospital to the Nariman Point to go directly to the business district. According to Ajgaonkar, the project was first promoted by the railways under a scheme called the Metropolitan Rail Project in the mid 1960s. However, it was shelved like many other city projects. Later, its relevance was reviewed in 1997-98 by the Mumbai Metro Planning Group, led by the Tata Consultancy Services, when drawing up plans for rail corridors in the city. The earlier plan envisaged an underground passage link between St Georges Hospital and Town Hall and that proposal has now been extended to Nariman Point. A senior official at the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) said the plan can be worked out provided the state and the port trust, which is centrally administered, can come to a conclusion over the details.Transport consultants, however, hold out hope and said in the past, there was no unified authority to take decisions on city transport. This has now changed as the state has set up a committee to take decisions on city transport projects.