Central Railway Penalises MIDC After Turbhe Kopar Khairane Track Cave In
Central Railway has issued a chargesheet to a railway supervisor and initiated penalty proceedings against the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) following an inquiry into a ground cave-in between Turbhe and Kopar Khairane stations on the Trans Harbour line in Mumbai. The incident, which occurred on June 24, caused the soil beneath the railway tracks to give way, disrupting suburban train services for nearly two-and-a-half hours and impacting hundreds of local services.
The inquiry conducted by Central Railway revealed that the public utility body had violated the approved conditions for its infrastructure work. The Railways had originally granted MIDC permission to lay underground utilities specifically using the micro-tunnelling method. However, instead of following this approved procedure, MIDC allegedly carried out pipe-pushing work.
According to railway officials, this unauthorized pipe-pushing method weakened the soil supporting the tracks, which ultimately led to the cave-in. The inquiry also highlighted that the project was delayed. While the Railways had directed that the work be completed within a one-year timeframe, the project exceeded this limit, and safety precautions were found to be inadequate during its execution.
Following the cave-in on June 24, emergency restoration work was carried out by railway teams. To ensure passenger safety, train operations along the affected section of the Trans Harbour line were suspended for around 2.5 hours. This suspension caused major inconvenience to commuters and disrupted hundreds of suburban services.
The subsequent probe identified lapses in supervision, leading to the decision to serve a chargesheet to the concerned railway supervisor. Additionally, officials confirmed that the process of imposing a financial penalty on MIDC has commenced due to the violation of the approved work conditions.
To date, around 60 per cent of the underground pipeline project has been completed. MIDC has now been granted an additional three-month extension to finish the remaining work, with the entire project expected to be completed by January 2026. Central Railway has also decided to tighten its monitoring of similar infrastructure projects near operational railway tracks to prevent similar incidents.
