Kolkata: Even as Metro Railway claims to have a 90km network by 2025 and another 40km added by 2027, the authorities couldn’t say when East-West Metro will run its full 16km after completing the troublesome 2.5 Esplanade-Sealdah section.
Speaking on the carrier’s upcoming milestone birthday on Thursday (Oct 24), Metro GM P Uday Kumar Reddy spoke of the road ahead.
But he couldn’t spell out when the last leg of East-West Metro or the Green line would be completed and thrown open to public.
“The construction of this section is very critical. We don’t exactly know what will happen (hinting at the fear of subsidence looming)…,” the Metro GM said. “We are trying to complete inch by inch. In normal circumstances, the section would have been completed years back… Not able to give a specific date of completion. We are struggling day and night,” he added.
On being asked repeatedly about the deadline for the work, he finally said: “There is light at the end of the tunnel. The work will be over shortly. But I cannot say when.” He added: “At the moment, the tunnels that had been impacted by the subsidence are being strengthened. We are trying to make the construction as safe as possible. When the last 2.5km section is added, the entire corridor’s signalling will have to be checked.”
In March this year, when East-West Metro under-river section (from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade) was being launched, authorities of Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), which is implementing the 16km East-West Metro project, and Metro Railway, which runs the city’s rapid transit network, had announced that the 2.5km section would be over by Oct-end.
It is five years since East-West Metro suffered the major subsidence and tunnelling disaster that rendered around 750 people homeless. Since the night of Oct 31, 2019, there have been two more subsidence-related incidents in the cave-in zone. Another 52 residents had to be evacuated on Sept 6 this year because of water seepage at Durga Pituri Lane, which is the ground zero of the cave-ins and where at least 25 houses had collapsed in the Aug 2019 tunneling disaster. Around 400 residents are still out of their homes, living in flats rented by ITD ITD-Cementation, which is contracted to build the Esplanade-Sealdah section.