Mumbai, Aug 30 (IANS): Flagging off the train trials for Mumbai's first underground Metro-3 line, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis slammed the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi government, blaming it for the delays in the construction of the Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ corridor.

Fadnavis, without naming ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray, said that the opposition to Mumbai Metro-3 was more for political reasons than love for the environment, which had delayed the project.

However, now CM Shinde has taken the initiative to resume the stalled project which will be a new lifeline for Mumbaikars, Fadnavis added.

Referring to the row over the Metro car-shed shifted from the Aarey Colony to Kanjurmarg by the MVA and the decision reversed by Shinde on June 30, Fadnavis contended that the move was in the public interest without affecting the environment.

Shinde said that nobody will be able to stop the progress of Maharashtra or Mumbai Metro and the first phase is expected to be operational by December 2023, and later it will be full-fledged in the next phase in June 2024.

Marking a significant breakthrough, Shinde and Fadnavis flagged off the trial runs on the city's first fully subterranean Mumbai Metro 3 line amid much fanfare and demonstrations by a small group of protesters.

Shinde, Fadnavis and Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) officials waved the green flag for the trial run at Sariputnagar in Aarey Colony to Marol Naka Station, with a temporary car-shed and a 3 km tunnel on the route.

The work on the 33.50 km Metro 3 corridor started in 2016 and the first phase is likely to be completed by end 2023, connecting Colaba in south Mumbai to SEEPZ in north-west via Bandra, with 26 underground stations and one at ground level.

MMRCL officials informed that the test runs of the Metro rakes over the next three-six months would comprise various parameters like speed, emergency brakes, rakes' performance, air-compressor systems, automatic doors testing, ventilation, oscillation in the tunnel - a first for Mumbai.

As per original plans, the line was slated for completion in December 2021 but was bogged down due to the car-shed row coming inside the Aarey Colony and the MVA government had shot down the proposal in November 2019, to shift the car-shed to a new site in Kanjurmarg.

After coming to power two months ago, the Shinde-Fadnavis government spiked the MVA's move and restored the car-shed location from Kanjurmarg back to Aarey Forest, leading to protests by the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress as well as environmentalists.

The delays have led to a cost escalation from the original estimates of Rs 23,000 crore to now around Rs 37,000 crore, and the complete project with a portion running below the Mahim Creek and Mithi River is now slated for completion only by mid-2025.

The current status of the project is that nearly 99 per cent of the tunnel digging work is complete, giving an overall project execution of around 70 per cent.