CM Devendra Fadnavis indicates car depot will come up at Aarey Colony

Despite knowing that Shiv Sena is against the proposed Metro rail car depot at Aarey Colony, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, without naming Sena, indicated that the depot will be constructed at Aarey Colony, displacing nearly 300 trees. He blamed the people responsible for cost escalation of the project and increase in Metro fares, saying that the same would now be recovered from Mumbaikars’ pockets.

Replying to the debate on budget in the Assembly on Friday, Mr Fadnavis said that the Metro was the only form of public transport adopted across the world to nullify increase in carbon footprint. He said that if the car shed was shifted somewhere else, the project cost would increase by Rs 1,500 crore, which is why one had to choose between saving the 350 trees or keeping the project cost down.

The CM said that no contractor would bear the increased costs from his pocket and would ultimately recover them from Mumbaikars’ pockets. He taunted the Sena and said, “I will go back to Nagpur when I retire from politics but people will remember me as the one Nagpurkar who gifted the Metro to Mumbaikars.”

Mr Fadnavis said that the distance between two suburban stations was 2 to 2.30 km whereas distance between two Metro stations was not more than 500 metres, which helped commuters as they did not have to opt for any other transport system to reach home. Hence, Metro was the cheapest form of transport. Terming the opposition’s claims that Metro would destroy Hutatma Chowk as “foolish,” Mr Fadnavis questioned who would dare to destroy Hutatma Chowk. He informed the House that the tender for Metro 7 had been opened, which was 10 per cent lower than the expected cost and the tender for Metro II A would be opened within a fortnight.