Work on Joka Metro’s Esplanade station likely to start by year end
Times of India | 14 May 2024
Kolkata: The stalemate over the terminal Esplanade station of the Purple line is set to be resolved. If all goes well, construction of the Joka corridor’s Esplanade station may start by the end of the year.
Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), which is implementing the 14km project, has submitted a revised proposal to the state PWD and the Eastern Command, which says the Metro station work will be split up in phases instead of being built at one go.
First, the BC Roy Market, where the Esplanade station is supposed to come up, will be shifted to south of the Mounted Police paddock. RVNL has been waiting for the defence ministry’s nod to shift the market for the last four years. The land belongs to the Army. So, the LMA will now forward the revised proposal to the ministry in Delhi.
A year ago, RVNL had invited bids to permanently rehabilitate the 500-plus traders to a two-storey shopping arcade inside East-West Metro’s Esplanade station complex at Curzon Park and then begin the Metro station construction. The revised proposal says the Metro station’s work will happen in phases and the traders will be relocated accordingly – within land available at Esplanade. They will eventually return to their original location atop the new Esplanade station.
“RVNL has ‘working permission’ from the ministry of defence (MoD) since 2016 for certain patches, including a 100m stretch of the Mounted Police paddock, the L20 bus stand, the Manohar Das Tarag and so on,” an official of the state PWD, the custodian of BC Roy Market, said. RVNL also has the provisional NoC from the LMA to shift the paddock to a location near Shahid Minar.
When the existing BC Roy Market is dismantled, excavation, diaphragm or D-wall casting for both sides of the 300mx25m station box will start after barricading the sites. Once the basic structure is in place, the traders will be shifted out to make way for the rest of the construction. They will be given temporary stalls nearby. Eventually, a permanent BC Roy Market will be built atop the new Esplanade Metro station.
In March this year, the Purple line, which now runs 8km from Joka to Majerhat, ran into a fresh setback as the MoD refused permission to permanently shift the “unauthorized” market to Curzon Park.