CIDCO managing director and vice-chairman M S Gill said, “We are checking the feasibility and we are already in talks with the railways.”

Before CIDCO opted for the Metro, the original plan was a Rs 495-crore Belapur-Seawood-Uran double railway line, approved in 1996-97, for which CIDCO was supposed to pay Rs 331 crore and Central Railway Rs 163 crore.

The project took time to materialise and the project cost spiralled to Rs 1,350 crore, leading to CIDCO looking for an alternative.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) prepared a feasibility report, suggesting a Nerul-Seawood-Uran corridor at an estimated cost of Rs 140 crore a km.

CIDCO asked Central Railway to stop work on the Belapur-Seawood-Uran railway line and opted for the Metro, along with a detour to the proposed Navi Mumbai airport.

As the cost of the railway project increased, the railways refused to pay its share. The railways had already spent Rs 50 crore and CIDCO Rs 75 crore on the project. Three road overbridges, 15 road underbridges, the Ulve Bridge, 4 major bridges and 73 minor bridges had been built.

“Leaving the project midway is a waste of public money and it was the CIDCO which had approached us to construct a line,” said a senior CR official. The CR, on its part, had shot several letters to the state government.