The current lockdown has impacted many businesses and Mumbai Metro is no different. The Mumbai Metro has been closed for over five months now. With the losses now mounting up. Reliance Infra is mulling to sell its 69 per cent stake in the operations.
Mumbai’s operational metro corridor, Metro one is built on public-private partnership, with Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure. The latter has now submitted a letter to the government expressing their desire to liquidate their stake in the operations.
Earlier there were news reports claiming that MMRDA may take over the stake that is currently owned by Reliance Infra.
MMRDA has 26 per cent stake in Mumbai Metro One PVT LTD which runs the metro while Reliance holds 69 per cent of the stake. Since, 2014, it has operated on the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar corridor.
With a ridership of 4.5 lakh every day, it has an average revenue of ₹1 crore every single day. However, amidst the losses, Reliance Infrastructure has written to the Maharashtra government, stating that it wants to sell the stakes it owns in the company. Metro-1 has been shut for five months owing to the coronavirus outbreak and had been suffering losses prior to lockdown as well.
Back in 2017, the Mumbai Metro had stated before the Bombay High Court that it was suffering a loss of ₹90 lakhs per day during a hearing on the petition of tariffs.
However, the MMRDA has been working on 10 metro corridors across Mumbai, but none of them has been on the public-private partnership model. Currently, the corridor has connectivity with the Western Railways at Andheri and Central Railways at Ghatkopar. In 2021, it is touted to have connectivity at DN Nagar on Link Road and Western Express Highway station in Andheri east.
Due to the lockdown, the operations for Metro One had to be stopped. However, now people are demanding that along with local trains, operations of Mumbai Metro too should restart. There is no decision been taken on the same by the Maharashtra government as yet.
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