MMRCL speeds up $3.3-bn subway metro in Mumbai

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL), which is a joint venture between the state and central government, is building one of the toughest and most challenging metro projects in the world beneath the most densely populated areas at an investment of $3.3 billion. With this mega venture, Mumbai will become the world's most crowded metropolis to build an underground subway. More than 8,000 workers and a fleet of 360-ft boring machines are working 24 hours a day—even through monsoon rains—to finish the 27-station, 21-mile subway through Asia's biggest slums, below an airport, temples and colonial buildings to end at a green edge of forest where leopards roam freely. The subway, which was started in 2016, is being built at a pace of just over one mile a month and has completed 9 miles till date. The Metro Line 3, Mumbai’s first underground rail line is on track to be finished by the end of 2021and with this MMRCL is also on its way to achieve the PM’s targets of building 170 miles of metro lines, under and over-ground in the metropolitan city by 2024.