KMRC rejects new east-west metro route
Kolkata – The Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) has disposed the proposal of realigning the East-West Metro route due to massive increase in cost. KMRC is already bearing Rs 40 crore a day for delay in construction.
This realignment of East-West Metro route was proposed to avoid the acquisition of 1.599 acres of land near Central station where the East-West route would be linked to the existing North-South Metro. But as per feasibility study conducted by RITES, realignment would escalate the cost by Rs 157 crore. It will cover an additional 1.5km in the central business district which would connect Esplanade and Dalhousie.
On the other hand, KMRC thinks that this realignment would increase the cost by minimum Rs 600 crore. Thus this proposal was rejected by them. According to the Managing director of KMRC, there were lot of issues which were not cleared by RITES in their study.
Earlier, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) threatened KMRC to pull out of the project over the proposed realignment. Jica is funding 46.22% of the total cost of metro while the rest is funded jointly by Railways and the Union urban development ministry. The biggest stakeholder of the Kolkata metro project is Railways with 74 percent of shares while urban development ministry holds 26 percent of shares.
This proposal of realignment by state government made the BB Ganguly Street rehabilitees to knock the doors of court. The shop keepers went to court and got stay order on the construction site and asked state to return the land it had acquired. Further, state appealed against the order and later on withdrew it.
According to an official, these shop owners (majorly tenants) were compensated after they agreed to move to a temporary accommodation in a building till the metro work gets over. This six-storey residential building is located at 10, Lu Sun Sarani constructed by government.
KMRC wants to clear all the land issues for no more delays which will result in cost overrun. It is thus a big challenge to complete this metro project by 2015 which is the rescheduled deadline of the project. The cost of East-West Metro corridor is Rs 4,874-crore which will connect ct Kolkata’s ‘Silicon Valley’ at Salt Lake Sector V with Howrah Maidan in the west.
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East-West Metro route, Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA, KMRC, Kolkata, Kolkata Metro, Kolkata metro rail project, Kolkata metro routes, Rites
