Thane, Mumbai and Navi Mumbai will soon get water taxis

In order to provide a major boost to the public transportation system, the water taxis will start functioning in and around Mumbai, starting from May, as per reports of PTI.

Last year, a roll-on roll-off (RoRo) cum passenger ferry service was launched between Mumbai and Mandwa near Alibaug. Known as RoPax, the water transport saw one lakh passengers in 20 weeks besides transportation of 20,000 vehicles.

After successful operation of Mandawa RoPax service that reduced the journey time between Mumbai and Mandawa from three hours to 45 minutes, RoPax service on four more routes, namely, Mumbai-Nerul, Mumbai-Karanja, Mumbai-Mora and Mumbai-Rewas, will be introduced by December 2021.

Similarly, water taxi services will be launched on 12 routes including from Domestic Cruise Terminal in Mumbai to Nerul, Belapur, Vashi, Airoli, Rewas, Karanja, Dharanmtar, Kanhoji Angre Island and Thane.

At present, the distance between Mumbai and Rewas by road is 70 km which takes 1.3 hours and after launch of the RoPax service the distance between both the places will be barely three km via water transport and Rewas could be reached in 15 minutes. Water taxis will have a seating capacity of 14 to 45 passengers at a time and will be operated by private players.

In addition, other water taxi routes will be Belapur to Thane and Gateway of India and Vashi to Thane and Gateway of India. Travel time on these routes by road at present ranges between 40 minutes to two hours 45 minutes and after the launch of water taxis it will range between 15 minutes to 1.3 hours in a few cases.