Barasat Metro in a limbo after airport’s rider on use of cranes
Times of India | 4 January 2024
Kolkata: Metro Railway suspended work on the Rs 5,000-crore Airport-Barasat line on Wednesday after Kolkata airport authorities refused immediate use of tall cranes for construction work along the flight path.
While the stalling of the project will further push back the Airport-Barasat line that has been dogged with delays since its inception, airport officials did not rule out the project’s revival, saying permission could be given for the use of tall cranes but that could not happen in a hurry.
Already counting losses, Metro Railway is now staring at the possibility of having to pay compensation to contractors. On Wednesday, it asked contractors Senbo to lower the cranes and start packing up from the airport site.
For one section, work worth only around Rs 30 crore (around 5% of a Rs 700-crore tender) could be done in the last 18 months. “Two tenders have been clinched. A third, worth Rs 1,500 crore, was about to be floated. But now everything is in a limbo,” a Metro official said.
Airport officials said they had asked Metro to seek the height clearance NOC over a year ago but the latter had applied for it only in October 2023. “We asked them to look at alternative construction methods in which cranes up to 12m or a maximum of 15m could be used near the boundary wall, particularly at the site selected for the New Barrackpore station, a part of which juts into the airport premises. But they said it was not possible,” an airport official said.
A source said that to allow operation of the crane for four hours a day, operations at the airport would have to be shut as obstructions of 30-35m so close to the runway would be a hazard to fights. “Since Metro is a vital project, we are willing to accommodate the demand by closing the airport at night when traffic is low. But that cannot happen immediately. Flights schedules are fixed months in advance. There are international as well as domestic flights that have to be rescheduled and that could happen in the next winter schedule starting October 2024,” the source said.
There have been at least three instances of pilots reporting proximity sensors in aircraft triggering alarm in the cockpit. The tall cranes and piling equipment positioned near the boundary walls are believed to have set the alarms off.