Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis inspected the progress of the Mumbai Metro
Highlights
- Chief Minister tours city, suburbs late at night
- Checks on progress of plans for Mumbai metro
- Metro to be launched in 2019 to supplement local trains
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis put in some serious overtime last night as he travelled to five different parts of the city to check on the progress on vital plans for Mumbai's metro. Wearing a hard hat, Mr Fadnavis, 46, travelled by road between midnight and 3:30 in the morning from the heart of the financial capital to suburbs that will be linked by the metro.
The after-hours inspection was planned to prevent inconveniencing commuters.
Mumbai is famous for its local trains, but the city's ever-growing population means the trains are stretched way beyond capacity. The metro, launched in 2016, is expected to cost nearly Rs 40,000 crores and will run underground in Mumbai and on elevated tracks in the suburbs. By 2019, nearly 75 kms will be covered by the metro to accommodate an estimated 9 lakh commuters, according to the government.
Devendra Fadnavis travelled to 5 parts of the city to check the progress of Mumbai's metro
"We have adopted the precast technology where most of the parts are built elsewhere, and then set up here. This is helping us construct at a fast pace and this is perhaps the fastest metro construction in the country," the Chief Minister told reporters.
Also on the streets last evening was Aditya Thackeray, who heads the youth wing of the Shiv Sena, which co-governs Maharashtra with Chief Minister Fadnavis. The Sena also runs the Mumbai corporation and is in charge of maintaining the city's roads which regularly dissolve into potholes every monsoon.
Mr Thackeray, 26, conducted a midnight inspection of road repair. "We want to ensure that we deliver on good roads for the city and that's what we are working towards," Mr Thackeray told reporters.