Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRCL) will issue detailed tenders for Metro Line 3 by July 2014 and award the contract to the successful bidder by October 2014. The construction on this underground metro corridor, which will cost over R23,000 crore, is likely to commence from January 2015.
The 32.5-km-long metro corridor will start from Colaba in south Mumbai and go till SEEPZ in the north, through Bandra.
There are 14 international and domestic firms that have already shown interest in construction of Mumbai?s first underground metro project in the pre-qualification round that ended on March 10, 2014.
MMRCL tied up the funding for this project from Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica) last year, and the Centre and the Maharashtra government through MMRDA will also be sharing the project cost.
?JICA is funding 57% of the total project cost of R23,136 crore, while government of India and government of Maharashtra-through MMRDA will bear the rest of the cost. The Central government will provide 50% of central taxes as sub-debt while the balance 50% shall be borne by the state government,? Sanjay Sethi, managing director, MMRCL, and additional metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA, said in a statement on Friday.
He added that the state government may get a few exemptions from various local taxes ? details of which were being worked out. Also, Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) will bear R777 crore of the project cost, since the metro will pass through MIAL areas.
The Metro-3 corridor is expected to carry 13.9 lakh commuters daily in the year 2021, which is expected to increase to 17 lakh in 2031.
