Vaishnaw invites CM to PM’s launch of 3 metro corridors
Times of India | 19 August 2025
Kolkata: Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has invited CM Mamata Banerjee to the inauguration of three metro lines in Kolkata by PM Narendra Modi. The PM is due to flag-off the new metro stretches on Friday.
Vaishaw, in the invite, wrote: "You will be pleased to know that the PM will inaugurate the Sealdah-Esplanade metro section, Beleghata (the station at Metropolitan), Hemanta Mukhopadhyay (station at EM Bypass-Ruby crossing), Noapara-Jai Hind (Airport Metro station) and the subway at Howrah Metro station, and flag off trains in these sections on Aug 22.
""We kindly invite you to grace the occasion at Jessore Road metro station for the above programme," he added. Jessore Road is one of four stations dotting the 7 km Noapara-Jai Hind (airport) stretch of the Yellow Line. The ground-level station has been selected by the PMO for Friday's event.
Most metro projects in the city were announced by Mamata Banerjee when she was railways minister in the UPA govt in 2009-10. Two of the above three corridors were conceived by her in 2010, a year after the city's most ambitious infrastructure project and the country's first under-water metro, the East-West Metro's foundation was laid.
All the above projects were hit by land and cost overruns. The East-West Metro will complete its entire 16.6 km when Modi launches the last 2.6 km Esplanade-Sealdah leg.
On Thursday, the same day he sent his letter to Banerjee, Vaishnaw also extended an invitation to Sukanta Majumdar, union minister of state for education and development of the northeastern region.