Metro tourism peaks as thousands hop on for ‘life-time experience’
Times of India | 17 March 2024
Kolkata: Metro tourism soared on the first weekend as thousands took a fun ride to experience the under-river tunnel journey on Saturday, a day after Kolkata scripted history by operating a transportation tunnel below the Hooghly.
On Saturday, it was mostly pleasure travel rather than a necessity. Operations started from 7am but as the day progressed, there were hordes of leisurely people, happy with this special outing and unravelling a technological feat found nowhere else in their country.
Amid the passengers, a group of men (and a woman) in khaki stood out. Cops from Hare Street, New Market and Burrabazar police stations, along with those from the Howrah Traffic Guard, decided to take time off to get a feel of the ecstasy of travelling 37 below the surface and 13m below the riverbed.
They had contacted ITD ITD-Cementation, contractors of the Esplanade station and the 2.5km Esplanade-Sealdah section, to organize the ride. “We are told Esplanade, at a depth of 30m, is India’s second deepest Metro station. We wanted to see the deepest Metro station. However, the 520m under-river ride was a central attraction,” one of the police officers said. ITD official Sumit Mukherjee took them on the guided tour.
“The river tunnel bit was like a whirl, we had passed it before the wink of an eyelid,” said 70-year-old Howrah Kadamtala resident Tapati Chakraborty, who, along with her 11-year-old grandson Triparno, had planned their ‘expedition’ soon after PM Modi launched East-West Metro’s Esplanade-Howrah Maidan section on March 6. They travelled from Howrah Maidan, waited inside the train when it reached its destination, and returned to Howrah Maidan.
Corporate executive Trinanjan Bannerjee had come all the way from New Town with daughter Anisha, a student of DPS Megacity, for the Metro ride. “It’s my day off. Anisha has no school on Saturdays,” he explained. “Nobody in my school has been on the under-river Metro yet. I will tell them about it on Monday,” Anisha said.
“This is more exciting than watching a cricket match at the Eden Gardens,” said Barnali Basu, a homemaker who had come with her daughters from Bolpur for the once-in-lifetime experience. “We bought our tickets (Vande Bharat) well in advance for the Metro ride, clubbing the occasion with my nephew’s birthday on Sunday,” she said.