India’s first underwater metro service, East-West Metro Corridor project expected to be completed by December 2023, project Kolkata’s Metro Railway Corporation (KMRC) said on Friday.
Shailesh Kumar, General Manager of Civil KMRC said, “The ongoing underwater tunnel project is likely to be completed by December 2023. Some restoration work is underway and other issues are delayed. postpone the completion of the underwater subway project.”
“We have hired foreign experts in tunneling projects, now we are using machinery from abroad (Germany) to make the difficult task easier,” the KMRC official said. told ANI.
With this, another feather is being added to the crown of Kolkata’s Metro, the country’s first metro rail line. The Kolkata metro, which began its journey in 1984, is being expanded to cover the entire city and suburbs.
It is worth mentioning that the East-West corridor of the Kolkata Metro is 15 km long and extends from Salt Lake Stadium to Howrah. This metro line between Salt Lake Area-5 to Salt Lake Stadium has Karunamayi, Central Park, City Center and Bengal Chemicals metro stations.
It costs about $120 crore per kilometer to build the tunnel but the cost of producing the underwater tunnel, which lies deep within the Hooghly River cost, has risen to around 157 crore per kilometer, ANI reports.
The Kolkata Metropolitan Railway Corporation took on the hard part in the construction of the tunnel with the help of German machinery and the best specialists. Work inside the tunnel is still underway.
The completion of the project will bring great relief to tens of thousands of passengers as it will connect the busy Howrah and Sealdah railway stations as well as the north-south line of the Kolkata Metro at Esplanade.
(With ANI input)
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