The controversial Mumbai Metro’s Line 3 project, which faces countless hurdles, has cost the state government over 70% of the total expenditure incurred in the nine ongoing Metro rail projects. The cost has escalated for the rail link between Colaba-Bandra-Seepz by over ₹10,000 crore from its original estimated budget in 2016. It was revised from ₹23,000 crore to ₹32,000 crore in 2021.

The economic survey of Maharashtra, tabled during the legislative session in March, said till October 2020 the state spent ₹22,624.29 crore on the nine projects underway in the Mumbai metropolitan region (MMR). Of this expenditure, ₹15,910 (70% of the cost) was spent on the 33.5km-long underground corridor.

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Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC), the implementing body of the project sent an escalation proposal to the state finance department in February 2021. The proposal has been put on hold due to the uncertainty the project faces after the Bombay high court, in an interim order, stayed the transfer of land at Kanjurmarg to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).

“There is a perception that no further cost should be approved till the controversy over the location of the car shed is resolved,” a government official said.

The MMRDA, too, filed an application seeking the stay order to be vacated as “a public project was being gravely affected”. However, it has done “little to push the case in the court for an early hearing,” an official said.

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Meanwhile, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is funding almost 60% of the total project cost, has not released funds for Metro 3 for the past year, according to reports. “It is not JICA’s fault. The agency is waiting for the cost escalation approvals by the state and Centre,” an official said.

Other reasons for the cost escalation, according to a senior bureaucrat, include the difference in Mumbai and Delhi’s terrain. “The original project cost was based on the terrain of the Delhi metro. It was later found that Mumbai has a different terrain,” he said.

The land acquisition cost for Metro 3 also drastically increased once the project started. The original estimate was fixed at ₹590 crore, which increased to ₹1,483 crore.