"The agreement between Maharashtra government and the Railways is likely to be finalised in a week," Railway Board chairman Vinay Mittal told reporters here this evening.
Mittal said that once the agreement is firmed up, the Railways will float an RFQ (request for qualification) and RFP (request for proposal) and possibly award the contract by the end of this fiscal.
The elevated rail corridor project, for which the feasibility study has already been completed, will connect Churchgate in the south and Virar in north-western tip of the megapolis involving an investment of Rs 20,000 crore. The project will be executed in public private partnership mode.
"Financial involvement of the Railways in the project will be meagre as this would be executed under the PPP mode," Mittal said.
On the plan to launch AC local services in the city, Mittal expressed the hope that it will be up and running from 2013-14.
"Initially, we will run it on a limited scale and after assessing the response, we will take a call on its expansion," he said.
