Tunnel work delays Kolkata’s E-W Metro Corridor safety check
Times of India | 19 April 2025
Kolkata: The Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) inspection of East-West Metro's last leg has been deferred as the work to give finishing touches to tunnels between Esplanade and Sealdah is still in progress.
The CRS, an independent statutory authority under the administrative control of the ministry of civil aviation, conducts safety inspections to issue the mandatory nod for operations on any new Metro line.
It can give its safety emboss only after physical verifications to check if work in the concerned section has been completed.
Prime minister Narendra Modi was due to open the last 2.6-km Esplanade-Sealdah section on Thursday (April 24), along with the Orange line's 4.5km Ruby-Metropolitan section.
To expedite progress, Metro Railway and Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), which is implementing the 16.6km East-West Metro, had halted interchange of empty rakes operating in the Esplanade-Howrah Maidan section over the past three weeks.
Following the postponement of the CRS visit, the authorities plan to transport two rakes from the Esplanade-Howrah Maidan section to the Salt Lake carshed-cum-maintenance depot after commercial services on Saturday. Two refurbished rakes from the Salt Lake depot will replace these rakes.