NEW DELHI: Water taxis and ROPAX ferries will soon be part of Mumbai's public transportation. Water taxis on 12 routes and ROPAX ferries services on four routes will be operational soon by December.
Union Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and waterways Manuskh Manadaviya chaired a meeting in this regard on Tuesday evening and to Review the Urban Water Transportation projects for Mumbai.
Speaking to ANI, Mandaviya said, "Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) Ji has started working fast towards the potential in the maritime sector as you can see Hazira to Goga ROPAX ferry as an example. Within 20 weeks more than one lakh passengers and more than 20 thousand four-wheelers have been transported."
The Minister further added that four new routes for ROPAX ferries will be operational by December 2021.
"In the same way, ROPAX ferry started from Mumbai to Mandwa and it also got good results in one year. In view of that, Ministry has decided to use water transportation to connect Navi Mumbai to Mumbai and are going to start ROPAX Ferries at four locations Nerul, Karanja, Mora, Rewas by next December," he added.
"Water taxis will soon start in Mumbai at 12 locations. The infrastructure work has been fully completed. With the development of urban water transportation in Mumbai, the distance between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai will be reduced considerably. Also, the traffic congestion on the road of Mumbai will reduce sharply.
Currently, the Mandwa ROPAX service is successfully functional and reduces the journey time from 3 hours to 45 minutes.