Kolkata East-West Metro | KMRC gets defence clearance for construction of Esplanade station

Kolkata: Esplanade Station of East-West metro corridor, which will be junction of three metro alignments, got go ahead signal from Army. This is a crucial breakthrough for the alignment as army is the custodian of the entire Maidan area, known as city’s lung. No construction is allowed anymore in Maidan area, except some mass-transit projects like metro which benefits a large number of people.


The Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) has waited more than a year for the requisite permissions since the deadline for the second phase of the project was revised to mid-2019. At Esplanade, East-west will be most crucial platform 30 meter below the ground which will merge here with existing Dum Dum-Tollygunge stretch of the north-south Metro under 16-17m underground.


It has been nearly a year since Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation applied to Bengal area of the Army for land at Curzon Park in Esplanade for the underground construction. Bengal which has a major tram depot on the land readily agreed to part with the required land for the metro construction.


Railway Board had written to the defence ministry thrice in the past few months, requesting possession of land. The state government too dashed off a reminder last month but for long there was no response from the ministry. The army says it has forwarded the proposal for land at Curzon Park to the defence ministry with positive recommendation and has no further role to play in the process.


The clearance is a crucial breather for the metro that has already ran a huge time overrun resulting into one and half times cost overrun. The 14.67 km rapid transit link was originally supposed to be completed in 2013-14. But since then the deadline has been revised several times, with government proposing alternative alignment. Instead of taking the Central (Bowbazar) and Mahakaran (on Brabourne Road), the state proposed Esplanade and Mahakaran (on the east bank of Lal Dighi). Finally ministry of railway agreed to this change of alignment. The revised length of the corridor is now 16.55 km.


The revised deadline for the second phase of the project between Sealdah and Howrah is August 2019, which we will now strive hard to meet with land being made available to us, said a KMRC official. The layout for Esplanade station is 8,000sq m in size and has five levels, unlike the usual three floors. Apart from the roof, there will be three concourses and a basement. The architecture of the platform will be in tune with heritage overview of the city centre. Work has started on the Howrah Maidan side to dig a tunnel that will go under the Hooghly to reach Kolkata shortly.


Significance of the clearance


The clearance is a breather for inordinately delayed project. Without the NOC, KMRC could not take possession of the land for cut-and-cover construction Metro stations because of the depth takes a quite a long time to complete


Length of the East-West alignment revised from 14.67 km to 16.55 km with 5.74km elevated stretch of tracks built on viaduct and 10.81km underground.


Original projected cost was Rs 4,874.58 crore, sanctioned in 2008-09. But delays as well as the fluctuating rupee have raised the to Rs 8,996.96 crore


Kolkata East-West Metro | KMRC gets defence clearance for construction of Esplanade station

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chennai Metro | CMRL releases map of Phase 2 metro project

Image
Chennai: Chennai Metro Rail Limited has officially released a route map for its ambitious phase 2 metro project that will connect far-flung areas of the city through three corridors. In February, Metro Rail floated nine tenders for detailed design consultants and for soil tests. In one of the tenders, it has released a map of phase 2 with 104 stations, covering 107km. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 85,047 crore. Chennai Metro Phase II Network Map (PC: CMRL) However, after a review of the alignment, CMRL officials said they had increased the number of stations to 116 covering a total 107.55km along three corridors. The tenders CMRL has floated are also for corridor 3 (Madhavaram Milk Colony to Siruseri SIPCOT) that covers the IT hub on the OMR and corridor 5 (Madhavaram to Sholinganallur). Corridor 4 that connect Light House to CMBT is likely to be extended up to Poonamallee at an additional cost of Rs 3,850 crore. A feasibility study is at present und...
Read more

Innovative SkyWay technologies: Future Transportation

Image
SkyWay string transport is an energy and transportation communicator of elevated overpass type. It uses electric vehicles on steel wheels riding on specific string rails. The main design differences of this system from other types of railroads of trestle design are pre-stressed tension of the structure, the absence of a continuous solid roadbed, low materials intensity in construction and visual simplicity. The main advantages are economic efficiency, environmental friendliness, durability, reliability, safety and, consequently, high market competitiveness. SkyWay transport is developing in three main areas: high-speed intercity type (up to 500 km/h, and in future, up to 1250 km/h with the transition to a pre-vacuum tube) urban passenger type (up to 150 km/h) and freight type. It has no analogues in its field with the ability to meet the entire range of transportation needs. In future it can be integrated into a unified global energy, information and transportation network, which will ...
Read more

Delhi Metro | DMRC to make phase-III project fully operational by March 2018

The Delhi Metro’s Phase III, an ambitious public transport intervention, will be almost fully operational by March 2018, bringing vast areas of the national capital into the fold of its fast expanding network. Stretches of the Pink and Magenta Lines, which will together measure over 90 km with 61 stations, will be thrown open starting this October and the entire corridors will be functional by next year. The 58-km-long Pink Line, which will connect Majlis Park to Shiv Vihar running along the arterial ring road that encircles the city, will be opened in stages between December 2017 and March 2018, according to the latest Phase III status report. However, a section of the corridor between Nizamuddin and IP Extension in East Delhi may not be operational by March as it is stuck due to issues pertaining to land acquisition. “The date for Nizamuddin to IP Extension section will be worked out after resettlement and rehabilitation issues at Trilokpuri are settled,” the report ...
Read more