Bowbazar cave-in: 5 years later, 400 displaced residents still out of home
Times of India | 31 August 2024
Kolkata: Five years have passed since the tunnelling disaster in Bowbazar but around 400 displaced Bowbazar residents are still living in houses rented by the agencies implementing India’s first under-river Metro project. However, the troubled 2.5km part of the East-West Metro corridor is scheduled to be completed in March, following which the houses will be rebuilt.
Sudipto Seal, who has since been living in a Kankurgachhi flat rented by Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), said: “It does look like the end of the tunnel for the city’s biggest infrastructure project. But we may continue to stay out of our para for at least three more years. They can’t start rebuilding our houses unless their work is over.” Many of Seal’s Bowbazar neighbours said they lived in rented apartments but still felt like being homeless.
Sanjay Sen, secretary of the Bowbazar Mati-o-Manab Kalyan Society, a group of the residents rendered homeless by the Metro construction, said he had given up on going back to his ancestral (Bowbazar) neighbourhood. The displaced resident, who also lives in a flat rented by KMRC on Jadu Nath De Road, said: “I am sure these houses will never be built even if the Metro project is completed. The govt knows that it’s been five years since we lost our homes. No one seems to care. Our movement has run out of steam.”
In Feb this year, days before PM Narendra Modi had flagged off East-West Metro’s under-river section, KMRC had conducted ‘Bhumi Puja’ for rebuilding the first lot of 26 Bowbazar houses that fell in the 2019 tunnelling fiasco. The event to mark the auspicious beginning of the long-awaited construction was held at Durga Pituri Lane.
The new houses will be built in the 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.
Before Aug 31, 2019, the ground zero of the cave-in was a cluster of century-old buildings. They fell like a pack of cards when a tunnel-boring machine (TBM) hit an aquifer, causing large-scale subsidence and displacing more than 700 residents. Two more cave-ins took place in May and Oct 2022. Around 70 houses have been repaired and the occupants have returned home. But 72 homeless families, comprising owners and tenants, are still living in rented spaces.
Among them is Ashish Sen, whose house at Shyakrapara Lane crumbled on Sept 1, 2019. “We are told that we will get houses almost identical to the ones that fell. KMRC has submitted the building plan to KMC. I believe it hasn’t even been approved yet,” he said.
A KMRC official said: “Contractors DMP Nirman Ltd have won the tender to rebuild the houses. They will start construction as soon as Durga Pituri Lane is cleared.”