Under-water tunnel for Kolkata-Howrah Metro link completed ahead of time

Phase I of the Kolkata East-West Metro service between Salt Lake Sector V and Phool Bagan is expected to commence as scheduled in 2018 with the successful completion of tunneling under river Hooghly within record time.

The tunneling work from Howrah started on April 14 using two gigantic tunnel boring machines (TBMs) - Prerana and Rachana - and the task has been completed within a record time of 66 days.

Kolkata East-West Metro project, the country's first Metro service to run under water, will connect Sealdah and Howrah Maidan through the underwater tunnel. The tunnel has been completed about 50 days ahead of the scheduled time, Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation (KMRC) announced today.

The East-West Metro, which will link Howrah and Kolkata, will start by the end of 2020.

The tunnel is the vital link of the of 16.6 km stretch, which will have 12 stations, six of which will be under the ground, while the remaining six stations will be on elevated tracks. The final commissioning of the project is expected by end of 2019 or early 2020, following which it will be operational.

The KMRC engineers and experts from overseas completed the construction of country's first underwater tunnel, the most difficult part of the Eat-West Metro project, KMRC director Satish Kumar announced at a media conference.

The project was undertaken by Afcons Transtonnelstroy and implemented by KMRCL. Digging at an average rate of 35-40 meters a day, the entire tunnel length of 520 metres was completed in little more than a month, KMRCL said.

The East-West Metro link, which will connect the city from south to north and east to west, however, still faces some disputes over digging under iconic buildings in central Kolkata, which could escalate the project cost to over Rs9,000 crore.

"The service in Phase I between Salt Lake Sector V to Phool Bagan will commence in 2018,'' Satish Kumar said.

"It takes around three years to complete the construction of an underground Metro station. Since we have all the necessary clearances, we can estimate that the work of Phase II that is from Sealdah to Howrah Maidan will be completed by 2020," he added.

Initially, 14 rakes will be brought in December 2017. The new air-conditioned six-coach trains will run at an average speed of 80 km per hour. The duration between two trains will only be 2 minutes 30 seconds.

"Now the main task is to carry out the work in a busy area like Brabourne Road. Tunneling in a metro city is really challenging," he said adding that all precautions have been taken to ensure protection of the heritage buildings.

"The tunneling work from Howrah Maidan to Howrah Station has been completed and none of the installations, including Howrah Station and the oldest one the DRM building, received a single crack. Thus, we are confident that none of the buildings, including the Beth El synagogue and the Maghen David synagogue, will not get affected," he said.

B Dewanjee, chief engineer (civil) of KMRCL, said: "East-West Metro, the existing North-South Metro and the Joka BBD Bag Metro will be intersecting at Esplanade Metro Station.

As per the study the passenger load at Esplanade station would be around 55,000 per hours while in Metro stations at Sealdah and Howrah stations it would be around 50,000. Besides the entrances on the surface, the subways of the suburban rails will be integrated with that of the Metro railways at Sealdah station."

Unlike the existing North-South Metro service from Kavi Subhas to Noapara, the East West Metro will have facilities to help differently-abled persons to enter a coach of a train on wheelchairs. Moreover, there will be toilets in all the stations.

There will be no chance of anyone falling accidentally or committing suicide by jumping on railway tracks as there will be platform screen doors.