In a bid to avoid flooding on rail tracks, the Central Railway zone has recently completed micro-tunnelling work at Masjid railway station in Mumbai without disturbing normal train movement. A press release issued by Central Railways said Masjid station is situated at a lower level than the ground level. Thus, to overcome flooding of tracks, the national transporter decided to lay an RCC pipe of 1000 mm diameter by micro-tunnelling method without disturbing the movement of trains, as this tunnelling method has given very good results at Sandhurst Road station area, where an RCC pipe of 1800 mm diameter was laid for 425 meter length, linking west side to east side across rail tracks.
In February 2021, a meeting was conducted in coordination with Divisional Railway Manager and Municipal Commissioner where it was decided to go ahead with the project to prevent tracks’ flooding during monsoon. According to Central Railways, the situation worsens during high intensity rainfall coupled with high tide, culvert’s inadequate capacity, lower storm water drainage network carrying capacity.
This project, covering both municipal area and railway area, started at the end of April 2021 in co-ordination with Indian Railways and the work was recently completed in railway area. Currently, the connection work of the newly laid RCC pipe with MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) network is in progress by MCGM and the same is expected to be over by the end of this month.
Once the whole project is completed, storm water will be bypassed through the new RCC pipe culvert. This will eliminate flooding of tracks and prevent storm water coming inside railway premises. During the monsoon period this year, the similar kind of work of micro-tunnelling has already been completed successfully at Sandhurst road station and Dadar-Parel area, in co-ordination with civic authorities.