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For Central Railway’s (CR) Harbour Line commuters, the rush hour will soon become more bearable.

From March 15, the CR will start local train services originating from Wadala Road and additional services on the Thane-Vashi route.
 
With Railway Minister Lalu Yadav keeping his budget promise, services on the Thane-Vashi section will increase from the present 42 to 54. So, now there will be three trains on the section connecting the two townships.

About the shuttle trains between Wadala Road and Navi Mumbai, a senior railway official said, “Local trains from Andheri-Bandra and Mumbai CST bring in a number of passengers at Wadala, to cater to this increasing crowd we have decided to induct seven additional services between Wadala Road and Vashi/Panvel from March 15. There’s also one new service between Vashi and Panvel.”

With this, the total number of suburban services on CR will increase from 1,236 to 1,255.
 
Lalu keeps pledge

The railway minister has approved nearly Rs 500 crore for phase 1 of the MUTP project. The outlay proposed for 2007-08 is Rs 492 crore for MUTP-1.

Besides this, money has been allocated for for quadrupling the Belapur-Panvel line (Rs 2 crore) and new lines between Belapur-Seawoods-Uran (15 crore), Turbhe-Nerul lines (Rs 1 crore) and a fifth line between Santacruz-Borivli. (Rs 1.23 crore).