This article is part of a daily series of MegaProjects articles. If you want to know more about PPP projects with a considerable size visit our MegaProjects section. You can receive them by email on a daily basis.

Indian railways and the Maharashtra government will sign the state-support agreement (SSA) for the 63-km Churchgate-Virar elevated rail corridor project by the end of April. This will pave the way for the progress of the project.

A senior Western Railway official said at a presentation on March 9, "The state government has given in-principle approval for the signing of the SSA." The SSA, originally scheduled to be signed in July 2012, was in a deadlock between the railways and the state government.The railways tweaked the project alignment, which had the SSA stuck, reducing the need to relocate property or acquire land. Now only 2.5 hectares will be needed in comparison to 11 hectares in the original plan.

According to railways, bidders for the project will be short listed by end of May 2013 and the final plan will be ready by September 2013.

The project is to be executed through the public-private partnership model on design, build, finance operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis. Indian Railways published a RFQ in August 2012. More than 20 companies, including some infrastructure giants like Reliance infrastructure, Gammon, IL&FS, Essar, GMR and some others, showed interest in the project.

The 60-km broad-gauge double-line rail corridor from Oval Maidan/Churchgate to Virar would be a mix of underground (18 km), elevated (33.5 km) and at-grade tracks (8.7 km). It would have 27 stations and a maintenance depot. The total necessary investment is estimated at US$3.7 billion.