Mumbai suburban railway gets port line

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Mumbai on Wednesday got a new suburban line. Terming it as the 'Port Line,' the railway board sanctioned the opening of the Kharkopar Uran suburban railway approving running upto 40 local train services. The Central Railway will decide a date of opening soon.

The Port Line (Belapur-Seawood-Uran Railway) will be the newest addition to suburban railway network in Mumbai in addition to various other lines, including harbour line, main line and trans-harbour line,

The Belapur-Seawood-Uran Railway Project has been an important project to improve the accessibility of the central part of Navi Mumbai from other peripheral areas of the region where development has been planned, this new line will greatly benefit public/passengers.

The line will also cater for the passenger traffic demands generated by Jawaharlal Nehru Port, Port-based industries to come in the vicinity, ONGC, Defence establishment at Uran, Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone (NMSEZ) and other residential, industrial and ware-housing complexes developed and under development in the sub-region.

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Mid-Day had highlighted in February 2021 how the project had been labelled as one of the most delayed railway projects in Maharashtra with a "time run over of 216 months that is 18 years" by the central government's own infrastructure and project monitoring division of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation. The date of approval of the project was March 1996 with an original deadline of March 2004 and original project cost of Rs 495.44 crore.

The project is being done on a cost sharing basis with the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Government of Maharashtra. One-third cost of the project is borne by Railways and two third cost by CIDCO at 67:33.

Of the 27 km Belapur/Nerul Uran stretch, the phase one of 12.4 km double line is complete till Kharkopar and commissioned on 11 November 2018 and presently operates with 40 services. The remaining portion of 14.60 km from Kharkopar to Uran with five stations is now set to open soon. The total project cost has been approximately Rs. 2,900 crore.