Rs5,000-crore expansion for Mumbai suburban services
26 Feb 2007
Indian Railways plans to invest Rs5,000 crore over 2007-2012 to expand the overcrowded Mumbai suburban rail services, railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav announced while presenting the railway budget today.
"Suburban services are the lifeline of our nation's commercial capital, Mumbai," he said and added, "to ease the overcrowding of Mumbai's trains, enhancement in capacity of these services will have to be undertaken."
The investment is part of a plan to expand capacity by 56 per cent in two phases, which Yadav said would be targeted for completion by 2012.
According to estimates, one out of every three of Mumbai's population of an estimated 14 million to 15 million people use the metro's suburban services every day.
Under the first phase, the railways would add more tracks on existing routes and more rakes to the existing daily services to expand capacity. Indian Railways, the state government of Maharashtra and multi lateral funding agencies, would undertake the second phase jointly he said.
