Thane, Citizens and urban transport experts have strongly opposed the newly initiated ₹12,200 crore Integrated Ring Metro project in Maharashtra’s Thane city, terming it a “colossal waste of public money” and flagging fundamental planning and environmental flaws.
Demanding an immediate halt to all ongoing works pending an independent review, the Citizens for Sustainable Transport and the Thane Green Collective on Saturday slammed the 29-km project for creating route redundancies and bypassing dense residential pockets.
Activists have urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to suspend all tendering and tree-felling activities for the project and publish the full detailed project report for public consultation.
“The route is nothing but a roller coaster. It overlaps with the main Metro Line 4 and Line 5 at least at three locations, creating redundancy instead of addressing actual connectivity gaps,” urbanist Sulakshana Mahajan said.
She claimed that the project ignores a massive population of 27 lakh in areas including Kalwa, Mumbra, and Diva, making its design “look like an amoeba rather than a circular ring”.
Advocate and Thane resident Hema Ramani demanded that the work on TIRM be suspended until the Metro 4 line is fully commissioned.
“Heavy metro systems require a ridership benchmark of 30,000 to 50,000 peak-hour passengers. TIRM’s own projection is a mere 28,000 by 2050, making it totally unviable,” she said, adding that the massive budget should instead be reallocated to enhance the public bus fleet and pedestrian infrastructure.
Activists also raised environmental concerns, pointing out that though the DPR stated that only 662 trees will be affected, the local municipal tree authority has marked 3,224 trees for felling.
Concerns were also raised regarding a threat to the Thane Creek mangrove ecosystem and severe traffic gridlock during the construction of a 3-km underground stretch near Thane station.
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