We have resolved crucial issues of resettlement & rehabilitation with friendly and convincing rehabilitation scheme.

S.K. Gupta

- Director (Projects), MMRC.

Please tell us about the journey of MMRC so far with regards to projects?

The 33.5-km long Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ Metro-3 Corridor is a challenging project, with Mumbai's dense population, heritage buildings on the alignment, acquisition of land, resettlement and rehabilitation of the affected residential and commercial dwellings, tunnelling below old and dilapidated structures, disposal of muck, tree-cutting, traffic management and many more. Of course, with competent team of MMRC officials, consultants and contractors, work force and lot of patience most of the technical challenges as well as other challenges are taken care of.

We have been able to resolve the crucial issues of resettlement and rehabilitation with friendly and convincing rehabilitation scheme for the affected people. In fact, the construction of three buildings to house the project affected people has already been finalized in consultation with the affected people as also the government. The construction of these buildings will get underway anytime.

The very latest technology has also helped us overcome the challenge of tunnelling below the old, dilapidated and heritage structures. The critical traffic management, while the underground work continues, is possible with detailed planning by our traffic professionals with key local inputs from Mumbai Traffic Police.

It may not be out of place to mention that clearing the frivolous litigations filed by various interest groups has put strain on timelines and resources. It is very difficult to understand how few organizations refuse to accept that the Metros, that are rail based electrically driven system, are the most environment friendly mode of travel. Mumbai welcomes and feeds everyone who arrives in the city looking for bread n' butter. We must create infrastructure that is modern, more importantly, environment friendly. It is estimated that this project will help reduce 2,61,968 tonnes of CO2 on an annual average basis.

Since Covid-19 pandemic has again reared its ugly head with the second wave damaging economic and infrastructure development, what are the challenges MMRC staff and workers are facing? And also tell us, what are the safety measures they are following at the work sites?

We are working with restricted number of workers. There are supply chain issues in completion of activities requiring diverse resources. There is shortage of workers who are skilled in control blasting, special equipment, and machinery. The experts & consultants also cannot be available due to various travel restrictions.

As far as safety measures are concerned, we are following all the Covid-19 related instructions laid down by the state government scrupulously at all our offices, work sites, tunnels, casting yards etc.

How, according to you, will MMRC play a major role with Metro & Railway projects for supporting PM Narendra Modi's initiative on 'AtmaNirbhar Bharat'?

We, as a country, have developed many an efficient Metro infrastructure setup and are experienced as far as the new and modern Metro is concerned - be it tunnelling, rolling stock and other related aspects. This will help us push public transport with our credentials and well-defined India-centric specific criteria in specified areas.

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