Mumbai gets India's first monorail

Mumbai rolled out nation's first monorail services on February 1. The Monorail service was  inaugurated by Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and the commercial operations started from the next day.

The Monorail service commenced operations on the 8.9 km Wadala-Chembur section in the central-eastern suburbs of the metropolis after a delay of over two years.

The Authority has fixed fares between Rs 5-11 for the first phase of operations. Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) will operate six trains in the first phase, and another 10 will be added in the second.

The services are being operated with four coaches having a combined carrying capacity of 2,300 passengers at every 15 minutes.

The monorail project has been executed by a consortium of engineering major Larsen and Toubro Ltd (L&T) and Malaysian firm Scomi Engineering and owned and operated by MMRDA.

The monorail is expected to reduce the travel time between Wadala and Chembur by almost half, from 40 minutes at present to nearly 21 minutes.