The Maharashtra cabinet on Tuesday accorded approval to the much-debated new metro project for Thane district, besides another Metro corridor to provide an east-west connectivity within Mumbai. The first is the 24-km Thane-Bhiwandi-Kalyan Metro 5 corridor which would be constructed at a cost of Rs 8,416 crore and would be the first in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, outside the country's commercial capital. It will have 17 stations and the trains shall have six coaches in each train with an estimated daily ridership of around 229,000 by 2021, increasing to 334,000 by 2031.