MMRDA to form agency to maintain metro corridors

Mumbai: The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) plans to form its own agency to operate and maintain upcoming metro corridors, by next year. Towards this, senior officials from MMRDA will travel to Singapore and Hong Kong to study the metro operations there. Thus, instead of handing it over to any private agency, the authorities will manage the metro lines on their own, a la the Delhi metro.

“We have taken loans to implement the upcoming metro projects which need to be repaid once the corridor is operational. Thus we have planned to create our own agency to operate and maintain the new metro corridors. The study for the same has already begun; the agency will be formed by next year till the operations of metro 2A (Dahisar to D.N. Nagar) begin,” said R.A. Rajeev, metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA.

Presently, the metro 1 corridor (Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar) is operated by the Reliance Infrastructure led-Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL). MMOPL is a special purpose vehicle formed for the metro; a joint venture between R Infra and MMRDA with R Infra owning 75 per cent stake. The Delhi metro has its own agency i.e. the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), which looks after the O&M of all metro corridors.

“We are going to study the metro operations’ model of cities like Hyderabad, Kochi, Delhi etc. Also, our officials will travel to Singapore and Hong Kong to review their operations system,” said Rajeev.

Singapore has SMRT corporation, a multi-modal transport system operator, while Hong Kong has MTR (Mass Transit Railway), a major public transport network.