Construction of Bowbazar buildings to start in May
Times of India | 7 March 2024
Kolkata: Construction of new homes for the displaced Bowbazar residents will start in May after work on the evacuation shaft at Durga Pituri Lane is complete, KMRC managing director V K Srivastava said on Wednesday.
On Feb 18, the residents conducted Bhoomi Puja for rebuilding the first lot of 26 houses that fell in the 2019 East-West Metro tunnelling disaster.
“We are aiming to open the incomplete 2.5km Sealdah-Esplanade section in Oct-end because it won’t be until May that the civil constructions of the stretch will be completed. Then it will take some time for safety clearances,” the KMRC MD said.
According to him, DMP Nirmal Ltd, contractors for rebuilding the houses, are waiting to start work. “But we have held them back because the egress shaft is a very complex construction. We are deliberately being slow, and can’t afford a repeat incident,” Srivastava said.
The base slab of the evacuation shaft, which is 2.5m by 13.5m, has been cast. KMRC and contractors ITD ITD-Cementation are going slow as they start building the walls from the surface that is 24m deep. “We have reached the full depth. We shall start building the walls and the stairs soon,” the MD said.
Durga Pituri Lane is the Ground Zero of the biggest setback for the Rs 10,000-crore East-West Metro. The new houses will be built in what is now an open space ringed by BB Ganguly Street in the north, Durga Pituri Lane in east, Gour De Lane in west and Hidaram Banerjee Lane in south. The evacuation shaft for East-West Metro’s 2.5km Esplanade-Sealdah section is being built here.