World | India
Skywalks to decongest Mumbai stations
Indian Railways asks metropolitan region development authority to start work on 21 projects.
- By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
- Published: 00:53 February 20, 2008
Mumba: Over 50 skywalks will come up in the metropolis at a cost of Rs6 billion (about Dh554 million), most of them outside suburban railway stations.
The Indian Railways has already asked the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which has proposed the skywalks, to build the structures near 21 suburban stations. The MMRDA, in turn, has asked the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) to get to work at nine stations - Nalasopara, Vasai Road, Ambernath, Goregaon, Vile Parle and Kandivili in the Western Railway zone and Masjid Bunder and Lower Parel in the Central Railway zone.
The most prominent of all the skywalks will be the one-km connection proposed between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) and Churchgate in South Mumbai which will benefit thousands of rush hour commuters.
A link between the two stations has been in consideration but sorely missed for the last two decades. Inspection of sites suitable for the skywalks has begun, with the MMRDA taking it up on a priority basis.
The first such skywalk is already under construction and will link the Bandra station to Kalanagar, near the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), on the east, and Bandra (West) to Hill Road and Mohammad Rafi Chowk.
Big strain
Bandra is one of the major suburban stations where more than 1,000 suburban trains operate every day, with over 500,000 commuters using the station. An equal number of people approach the station from both sides with nearly 40 per cent preferring to walk and the rest arriving in buses, autorickshaws or other modes of transport. The 1.3-km elevated walkway to Kalanagar, to be completed by April, is expected to take a big strain off congested roads in the area.
The MMRDA is also considering skywalk-cum-hawking plazas, a decision taken in view of plaints from hawkers at Kanjur Marg railway station of their business being badly affected after being shifted to an interior area.
MMRDA officials are wondering whether skywalks can also solve the problem of those displaced by the project. Construction of a skywalk at Kanjur Marg will begin in a few months and the project will be a pilot one for the skywalk-cum-hawking plaza.
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