Mumbai’s own railway?

APRIL 30: If Kirit Somaiya is to be believed, Mumbaiites have got their wish. The BJP city unit chief and a member of the Rail Co-ordinatio...

APRIL 30: If Kirit Somaiya is to be believed, Mumbaiites have got their wish. The BJP city unit chief and a member of the Rail Co-ordination Committee today claimed at a press conference that the Railway Board had agreed in principle to the formation of a separate corporation for Mumbai’s suburban railway network. It will be called the Bombay Rail Development Corporation.

However, general managers of both Western Railway and Central Railway, the suburban sections of which will comprise the BRDC, when and if it is set up, remained unavailable for comment throughout the day.

Somaiya said the corporation would function under the Railway Ministry and would be headed by a senior railway officer. It would also have representatives of the state government on its governing board. The Government of Maharashtra and the Railway Ministry would fund the corporation on a 50-50 basis, he added. BRDC, Somaiya said, would be responsible for executing all the developmental projects (related to rail transport) identified under the Bombay Urban Transport Project-II (BUTP-II) on its own through commercial exploitation of railway properties.

The corporation will also co-ordinate with both Central Railway and Western Railway to rehabilitate those affected by the project. There are over 19,000 slums along the tracks on both Central and Western lines. These slum-dwellers will be rehabilitated under the state government’s Slum Redevelopment Scheme.