Mumbai, April 8 -- The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) now has the second-largest metro network in India after the Delhi Metro, as Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis inaugurated partial stretches of two metro lines, 2B and 9, on Tuesday. The operationalisation of the first phase of lines 2B (Mandale - Diamond Garden) and 9 (Dahisar East - Kashigaon) added 5.53 km and 4.7 km, respectively, to MMR's metro network, bringing the tally past 100 km. The services will be thrown open to the public on Wednesday. "Today, we crossed 101 km of the operational metro network in the MMR," said Fadnavis, after taking a ride on line 9. "We now have the second-highest operational metro network in terms of length...Step by step, we are moving closer to our vision of a fully integrated 337-km metro network and a 'Mumbai in Minutes' reality." MMR's metro network is now second only to the Delhi Metro, which spans 416 km and continues to grow, with 65.2 km currently under construction. Before Tuesday, Bengaluru ranked second, with 96.1 km of operational lines. India's oldest metro network, in Kolkata, is 73.42 km long, followed by Hyderabad (69.2 km) and Chennai (54.2 km). "Our goal is to create a metro rail network bigger than Delhi NCR over the next three to four years," said Fadnavis. Apart from inaugurating the two metro lines, Fadnavis and his deputies, Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, also laid the foundation stone for the pod taxi project in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). "In the next 20 months, the first phase will be ready," said Shinde at the ceremony. The first phase of the 8.85-km pod taxi network will be 3.36 km long and will include stops at Kurla, LBS Road, MMRDA Pay & Park (G Block), Bharat Diamond Bourse (Gate 11), Bandra East, Kalanagar, the old MMRDA building and the Excise Department. By 2031, a total of 22 stations are expected to be opened, with one every 200 metres. A pod taxi is a driverless, point-to-point transport system with cabin-like pods running on dedicated elevated tracks. Each pod will carry six passengers at a frequency of 15 seconds. By 2031, the project is expected to serve 109,000 passengers daily. Fadnavis, Shinde, and Pawar also launched the first tunnel boring machine (TBM) for the Thane-Borivali Twin Tunnel project. The machine, christened Nayak, began excavation in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park from the Thane end. Of the total 11.84 km project, 10.25 km will be drilled, covering 6.09 km from the Thane side and 5.75 km from the Borivali end. The project is expected to significantly reduce travel time between Thane and Borivali from 90 minutes to 15 minutes....