Kolkata: Doing away with the Esplanade station and terminating the Purple line at Park Street is likely to disrupt the ongoing plans of the multi-modal transport hub at Esplanade.
Metro Railway general manager P Uday Kumar Reddy told media on Friday that the ministry of defence (MoD) had refused permission to shift B C Roy market and build the Purple line’s Esplanade station at the spot.“The Esplanade station was supposed to come up where the market is situated. The entire market is unauthorized. The MoD has now refused us permission to make a station there or shift the station,” Reddy said.
Officials said on Saturday that RVNL, the implementing agency of the 14km Joka-Esplanade corridor, will try and persuade MoD yet again. As a last-ditch effort, they will ask the state govt to find land to relocate the 500-off stalls of the market. “Otherwise, we will have to terminate the line at Park Street, which has an interface with the North-South line,” a Railways official said.
State govt officials told TOI that railways consultancy firm RITES has been preparing a detailed project report (DPR) of the transport hub at Curzon since Aug. The North-South (Blue) and the East-West (Green) lines have already converged at Esplanade at different levels, with a provision to link the Joka-Esplanade (Purple) line at another level.
“RITES has been preparing the DPR based on the convergence of the three Metro lines. With one of them ending at Park Street instead of Esplanade, fresh studies will have to be conducted and the DPR prepared all over again,” a Railways official said.
“Esplanade can still be the terminal station for the Purple line if the state govt manages to find land to rehabilitate the traders. RVNL has already floated bids for a two-storey market above the new East-West Metro’s Esplanade station. Clearly, MoD has a problem with this, the market being unauthorized. The Army is the custodian of the Esplanade area. It is not willing to legitimize an unauthorized setup,” the official added.