Mumbai: The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is looking at asking the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) to run the Mumbai Monorail.
“We have approached MRVC to operate and maintain the Monorail. However, the discussions are still in the preliminary phases. We are also simultaneously negotiating with IL&FS,” said a senior MMRDA official.
MMRDA has been unable to appoint a new operator for the project and the agency had to float tenders four times, as it did not receive any response from companies for its operator and maintenance contract in the first three attempts. IL&FS emerged the lowest bidder in the last bid, and had quoted Rs. 2,000 crore for the Monorail’s operation and maintenance for 10 years. However, the bid amount was higher than MMRDA’s estimates of around Rs. 1,000 crore. MMRDA officials said that they had also approached the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to run the Monorail.
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Sources in MRVC said they had received the proposal and were working on it. A senior railway official said the proposal could bear results since MRVC is a joint venture between the Ministry of Railways and the Government of Maharashtra and the latter controls the MMRDA. “The Railways have a lot of internal expertise in operations, which would be used for the project. Since both are government organisations, profit margins won’t need to be as high as those quoted by private operators,” said a senior official, adding it was still early days and several issues needed to be ironed out, including procurement of spares for existing rakes as well purchasing new rakes from established vendors such as Bombardier and Hitachi.
The Monorail has been shut since a fire gutted two coaches in November 2017.
The project has been plagued by a series of issues, one of the major ones being the procurement of spares for the existing monorail trains. Officials said that since the existing contractor, a consortium of L&T Infrastructure and Scomi Engineering (LTSE), was unable to procure them, the MMRDA was working on modalities to pay the vendors directly.
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The 19.7 monorail corridor will connect Chembur and Jacob Circle. The MMRDA had commissioned the first phase connecting Chembur and Wadala in 2014. A fire in two coaches near Mysore Colony station halted operations on that phase. Work on the second phase saw several delays and the section received a safety clearance in March from former commissioner of railway safety SK Garg. MMRDA officials said he had asked the MMRDA to ensure adequate stock of spare parts for regular maintenance of rakes.