The project, billed to be completed in five years, will segregate suburban rail operation on both the Central and the Western Railways, provide air-conditioned coaches with automatic doors, decongest entry/exist at the stations and improve passenger amenities and passenger movements at the stations. It also aims at creating corridors for seamless travel for long distance by the suburban passengers and increase in safety with capacity and efficiency of the suburban network. The cabinet approved ₹30,849 crores for Phase-IIIA for the same.
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Officials said Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who hails from Mumbai, pushed for modernisation and expansion of the city’s suburban railways network after taking under consideration the severe overcrowding, especially during the peak hours, when local trains carry passengers four times than its capacity. Around eight million people travel every day by more than 3,000 suburban train services.
The Mumbai suburban railway network of the Central and the Western Railways has 385 km of the rail line and five corridors — two each on the Central and the Western Railway and one on Harbour Line.