History
Vilasrao Deshmukh, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, cleared the notification for construction of a monorail system in Mumbai on 18 August 2008. The system will traverse through Jacob Circle, Wadala, Mahul and Chembur, paving the way for a feeder service to the existing suburban railway network
The two shortlisted consortia to build the line were Bombardier Transportation, Reliance Energy in association with Hitachi Monorail, and Larsen and Toubro with Scomi Rail of Malaysia. On 11 November 2008, the winner was announced to be Larsen and Toubro along with Scomi, who received a 24.6 billion (US$450 million) contract to build and operate the monorail until 2029.
Construction of Mumbai Monorail started in January 2009 along the Chembur – Wadala – Jacob Circle route and was scheduled to be completed in April 2011. Due to delays, the first portion of the line, between Chembur and Wadala, is now expected to be operational in August 2013. The second portion, from Jacob Circle to Wadala, is expected to be ready by December 2013.
A 108-meter test run was successfully conducted on 26 January 2010. The monorail had its first test run on 18 February 2012 from its yard in Wadala to a station at Bhakti Park, a distance of around a kilometre. Scomi, the Malaysian company that supplied the rakes for the project, was in charge of the trial. The MMRDA will decide whether the Singapore-based SMRT or the Hong Kong-based Mass Transit Rail will be given the task of certifying the monorail system. This is because the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) had said it didn’t have the capacity to certify the monorail, as it was a different system from the railways. The electrical workings of the monorail will be certified by the Electrical Inspector General.
Read more about this topic: Mumbai Monorail
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