Work on the construction of what will be the longest tunnel on Mumbai’s suburban railway, began on Wednesday, with the blasting of a hill for both of its portals on the Panvel-Karjat suburban railway project. This tunnel, no. 2, has a length of 2.6 km.

A new suburban railway line corridor is being built between Panvel and Karjat in addition to the existing line. The length of the new line is about 29.6km and it will have five stations. The entire line will have three tunnels, two rail flyovers, 44 major and minor bridges, 15 road under bridges and seven road over bridges. The target date of completion is December 2025. The three tunnels on the line include the Nadhal hill tunnel (219 m), Wavarle hill tunnel (2.6 km) and Kiravali hill tunnel (300 m). At present, the Parsik tunnel between Thane and Diva is the longest (1.3 km) tunnel on the Mumbai suburban section. Work on the tunnel had begun in 1906 and it was opened to traffic in 1916.