Engineers recall ‘HR job’ of over six years that put humans first
Times of India | 24 August 2025
Kolkata: They were supposed to deal with machines — of the tunnel borer kind — and papers. However, the human resources and administrative departments of ITD ITD-Cementation, contracted to build the 2.6 km East-West Metro corridor, ended up dealing with humans since Jan 2019. Following the tunnelling disaster on Aug 31, 2019, for this group of 10-odd officers and engineers, the job description seemed to have changed forever. On a daily basis, they were handling food and logistics, medicines, hospitalisation, and even tragedies (a few elderly Bowbazar residents, displaced because of the East-West Metro construction, passed away).
Around 400 Bowbazar residents are still living in apartments rented by ITD. They were evacuated during various phases of construction, either as a precaution or following an incident of subsidence that damaged the ancestral houses beyond repair. They still turn to this crisis management team.
"The making of East-West Metro's Esplanade-Sealdah section, which passes through the subsidence-prone Bowbazar, was more about dealing with humans rather than the giant tunnel boring machines (TBMs) and other construction equipment. I think our team members have become experts in crisis management," said Somen Sengupta, senior deputy general manager, ITD Cementation. "We went through such difficult times, handling the agitated residents, dealing with their anxiety and lack of faith in the agencies responsible for building East-West Metro, that we ourselves were sometimes on the verge of collapse. But everyone worked as a team, putting up a brave front through the last six years," Sengupta said.
| Gold Rates Today in Kolkata | Silver Rates Today in KolkataAs luck would have it, a senior citizen, Sabita Basu, died of heart attack in April 2019, when she was shifted out of a building on the JN Road-SN Banerjee Road crossing. "The woman never moved out of her third-floor flat in many years but had to be shifted out because the first of the giant borers, 7 m long and weighing 500 MT Herrenknecht-made, started digging below the dilapidated buildings. Her death had nothing to do with the tunnelling, but she was our responsibility, with no next of kin around. We ended up arranging everything — from her funeral to her memorial services," said Sumit Mukherjee, who supervised the evacuation of residents from the start.
"The two TBMs — Urvi and Chundi — were named after Goddess Durga. When they started digging, we had no idea what fate had in store," he said. TBM Chundi was christened after former ITD project manager Chundee Mookhan, who left his job to become a Buddhist monk. Goddess Durga is also called Chundi. Unfortunately, it hit a sand aquifer below Bowbazar's Durga Pituri Lane, on Aug 31, 2019, causing large-scale subsidence and evacuation of more than 700 residents. This was followed by at least three more incidents of subsidence and several instances of evacuation.
Sources in KMRC, the implementing agency of the Rs 10,000 crore East-West Metro, said engineers and executives had to deal with at least 2,000 people (residents and traders of Bowbazar), attend to a host of issues (from medical to logistics) and are still taking responsibility for 400 residents living in flats. "We are waiting for KMRC to rebuild our houses and take us back home. Meanwhile, we call up the ITD team if we need any help," said B Basu, a displaced resident.
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