First set of monorails for Mumbai ready

The first set of four car trains for country's first ever monorail urban transportation link is ready, almost a year ahead of its launch in Mumbai next year.

The first set of cars for the $600 million project to be used in the system's inaugural 20 km run were inaugurated at monorail factory at Rawang in Malaysia.

Mumbai's Metropolitan Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad who was present on the occasion said 180 kms of the monorail track would be laid out by the next five years under the city's monorail masterplan.

Declaring that the monorail would "transform Mumbai", Gaikwad said the $600 million project would be the first monorail in the country and noted that there were plans to expand the monorail network in other regions.

The Mumbai monorail project which is expected to be completed by 2011 is a 20-km route between Jacob circle and Chembur with one central depot and about 18 user-friendly and highly secured stations.

Each monorail comprises four coaches and will have a capacity to carry 600 passengers thus ferrying about 300,000 commuters daily in the proposed route, Gaikwad told reporters.

Gaikwad was in Malaysia to inaugurate the four car monorail built by Scomi Group, a leading provider of urban transit system.

The four car train will undergo static and dynamic testing before it goes on a complete circuit run under close supervision by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority technical team.

Scomi which is said that the Mumbai monorail would see a total of 15 monorail trains of four coaches each.

Scomi won the open tender in 20008 to set up the monorail in collaboration with Larsen and Toubro Ltd.

The first monorail coach arrived in Mumbai in January this year and Scomi successfully carried out the test run of the coach on a 500 metre test track on Wadala depot.

Gaikwad noted that Scomi needed to talk to its partner to work faster with the civil work.

"There are issues there, but from concept to commissioning Scomi had finished in less than two and half years," he noted. "It is one of the fastest executed projects," Gaikwad admitted.

The second corridor project would cost at least one billion US dollars but "will be on a public, private partnership," he said.