Kolkata is going to be the first city in India to have an underwater metro. The tunneling work under the Hooghly river is completed. It will be providing metro connectivity between Howrah and Kolkata. This tunnel is a crucial link for the 16.4 km long East-West metro corridor that is being constructed by Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation.
This tunnel is a crucial link for the 16.4 km long East-West metro corridor that is being constructed by Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation. The estimated cost of the project is about ₹9000 crore. This is going to be another achievement by Kolkata after getting its first metro railway in India in 1984.
The project includes engineers from India as well as abroad.
“The KMRC team, including engineers from abroad, has completed the construction of India’s first underwater tunnel under the Hooghly river,” Satish Kumar, the MD of KMRC, said yesterday
The construction of the tunnel started last week of April from the Howrah end and reached the Kolkata end on 20th June. Two tunnels, for onward and return journeys, have been bored 13 meters beneath the riverbed and 30 meters from the ground.
The operation of the first phase of the East-West Metro Corridor will start next year and will operate between Salt Lake and Phoolbagan. The first rake, built by BEML, will arrive in December this year.
Full operation of the East-West Metro Corridor till Howrah Maidan will start mostly in 2020 and a total of 17 rakes will be in operation.
KMRC has got all the necessary clearances from different agencies. Work on construction of the Esplanade station in the city’s central business district has already started, Kumar said. He said the operational headway for the full phase would be 2.5 minutes which is enough to handle the passenger load, particularly at Sealdah and Howrah metro stations.