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Bombay to have rail development corporation

The Union government has decided to set up the Mumbai (Bombay) Rail Development Corporation,a wholly government-owned company under the Companies Act, 1956, to oversee the Mumbai Urban Transport Project, phase 2.

The corporation will develop coordinated plans for rail components to be included in MUTP-2 and other plan investments in the Bombay suburban rail services and execute the resulting infrastructure projects.

The corporation, a joint venture of the ministry of railways and the government of Maharashtra, will integrate urban development plans for the Bombay metropolitan region with rail capacity plans and proposed investments, ensure improvement of track drainage, and removal of encroachments and trespassers from the railway's right-of-way and station approaches.

The other function of the MRDC will relate to execution of specified projects for the commercial development of railway land and to apportion the net income in the ratio of 1:1:1 for railway projects in Bombay area, Maharashtra, and elsewhere in the country respectively. This would be done in consultation with the ministry of railways and the government of Maharashtra respectively as the case may be.

Meanwhile, a decision for seeking a World Bank loan will be taken up only after the project preparatory studies are over. The World Bank has since extended the last date of completion of the project preparatory studies from June 30, 1997, to September 30, 1997.

The ministry of railways has also decided that in view of the conditions associated with the World Bank assistance, the rail component will be executed even without the World Bank assistance.

Based on the requirement of funds for MUTP-2 and keeping in view the physical limitations in executing such works as also the ability to incur expenditure, especially in the Bombay area, it is felt that a fund availability of Rs 3 billion per annum on a sustained basis should be able to meet the requirement. Such an amount would be raised through additional budgetary support of Rs 2 billion per annum under the Metropolitan Transport Projects plan head, and a levy of surcharge on commercial expenses and commercial exploitation of land.

Earlier, the Maharashtra government had approached the railway ministry to consider the rail augmentation plan for a comprehensive urban transport project which could be taken up with World Bank assistance.

In this connection, the World Bank extended advance from project preparatory funds for certain projects preparatory studies for road and rail component of the MUTP-2.

The road component studies are being dealt with by the state government and the rail component studies by the railways ministry. Two of the rail component studies are over and the third study is likely to be completed by the end of this month.

UNI