MRVC hastens ₹2,783-cr Panvel-Karjat rail line

The Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) has hastened the new suburban railway corridor on Panvel-Karjat as the corporation has initiated the process of land acquisition. The new rail line will not just connect far ends of the Raigad district in Mumbai's Metropolitan Region, but will also push development activities in the region. It has been more than four years since these ₹2,783 crore new suburban rail lines got approved but have been moving at a slow pace for various reasons. The authorities are currently working on acquiring 32 hectares of land that falls on this 28 km long rail corridor. Of these 9 hectares – equivalent to 6 football grounds – fall under forest land and the railway has received permission from the state government for acquiring this forest land. The MRVC authorities will be constructing three tunnels, which incidentally will be the first suburban rail line in Mumbai, that shall have to ballast fewer tracks. It has also floated tender for its boring using NATM technology. These will be ballastless which will make it easy for maintenance the longest bridge will be more than 2.5 km while the other two will be less than 250 meters. Currently, a single line connects Panvel with Karjat traversing through the taluks of Panvel, Khalapur and Karjat and caters to goods and long-distance passenger trains. The suburban corridor will have five stations of Panvel, Chikale, Mohape, Chowk and Karjat and will pass through 58 bridges. This is a part of ₹10,947 crore worth Mumbai Urban Transport Project-3 and is destined to be ready by 2022.