RInfra-led MMOPL to sell stake in Metro after losses

MUMBAI: Maharashtra on Thursday recorded its highest singleday spike case, second in a row, with 14,492 Covid-19 cases on Thursday. With the first daily caseload in excess of 14,000, the state’s case count now stood at 643,289, while active cases were at 162,491, nearly 25.25% of the total cases reported so far. On Wednesday, 13,165 cases were reported.

The death toll of the state reached 21,359, after 326 deaths were reported. Of them, 231 were reported in the past 48 hours, another 63 deaths from past one week, while the rest 32 deaths were from the period before that, the health officials said.

The surge in cases in Maharashtra is not going not down even after 165 days from the first case of Covid-19 detected on March 9. In fact, the average number of cases per day have increased to over 11,000.

In 20 days of this month, the state has reported 221,610 cases, which accounts for 11,080 per day, on an average.

For the month of July, it was 7,980 cases per day as the state has recorded 247,392 cases in that month, while in June it was 3,405 cases a day as cases recorded were 102,172.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in a meeting with districtlevel officers held on Tuesday had said parts of Maharashtra have reached their peak of Covid-19 cases, while some parts are close to getting there.

State health minister Rajesh Tope, too, has said they expect the downward trend of the Covid-19

infection after mid-September. “We have been witnessing peaks across the state, but are not sure how long it will last. We have been witnessing stabilisation of cases in Malegaon, Dharavi and the spread is in control in Aurangabad. In most places, the spread has plateaued and now the downward trend is expected after mid-September,” he said on Tuesday. “Most parts of the state are witnessing their peak as a result increased in daily caseload is observed. We are hoping for downward trend only in September as two festivals — Ganeshotsav and Muharram — are falling on August 22 and August 30 respectively,” said a senior official from health department, wishing not to be named.

MUMBAI: Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra)-led Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd (MMOPL) has written to the Maharashtra government, saying that it wants to sell the stake it owns in the company. Metro-1 has been shut for five months owing to the pandemic and had been suffering losses prior to lockdown.

MMOPL is a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that was constituted to develop and run the 11.5 km Metro-1 on a public-private partnership model. RInfra owns 69% stake in MMOPL; the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority’s (MMRDA) owns 26%; and Transdev (formerly Veolia Transport) owns 5%. Bhushan Gagrani, principal secretary, urban development confirmed that the department had received MMOPL’s letter. Replying to HT’s query, he said over text message, “Yes, we have just received [the letter]. [We have] not taken any view yet.” At the time of going to print, RInfra and MMOPL had not replied to HT’s detailed questionnaire, sent via email. A senior official told HT that the state has sought MMRDA’s views on the development.

ANSHUMAN POYREKAR/HT PHOTO A health worker screens a resident in Parel on Thursday.