State government approves Churchgate-Virar rail project
Maharashtra Government has recently given green signal to the Churchgate-Virar rail project. The elevated corridor project is meant to ease the city’s suburban rail traffic. The announcement of the approval was pending for quiet a few days.
The Rs 21,000 crore budget project will be implemented by the railways and the state government would help in land acquisition, relief and rehabilitation work, shifting of utilities, legal and order maintenance during construction, development of concourse area and fixing the FSI for commercial development of stations.
A support agreement will be signed between the two parties which has been delayed for a while. The delay was due to certain differences regarding the FSI to be made available for commercial development, the relief and rehabilitation model, and an arbitration clause.
Earlier, an FSI of over 4 was sought by the Railways for some of its land parcels but all the differences have been sorted out now.
The railway corridor from Churchgate to Virar will be Indian railways’ first and India’s largest public-private partnership initiative in the passenger segment. The corridor will have 26 stations of which five will be underground, nineteen elevated and two at ground level.
Although the project will be outsourced to a private player, the land required for the proposed project is said to be provided by the Indian railway and the Maharashtra government; as the private developer would not be able to recover the cost of the project from the fares.
This proposed 3.27 km long corridor from Oval Miadan to Virar is expected to be a real test for the Indian railway as the private developers have never dealt with such a rail project before. However, the private developer will be responsible for its operation, fare fixation, collection and the rate of return of the project is estimated at around 3.26 percent from fares but is expected to go up to 13.5 percent.
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