Further delays would have increased additional ticket costs for the Metro 3, which will now thankfully not happen,” said Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while flagging off the train trials on Tuesday morning.

He said the Maharashtra government had managed to salvage the much-delayed Aqua Mumbai Metro Line 3 in time, and that it would now be completed on schedule in phases, starting December 2023, and any further delay would have unnecessarily burdened Mumbaikars. Trials of trains on Mumbai’s most controversial Metro rail—the Aqua Line 3 that connects 33.5 km Colaba-Bandra to SEEPZ—are being held at the temporary facility in the absence of a depot  to save time and to expedite the commissioning of Phase 1.