Citizens of Kolkata are likely to enjoy a journey in the entire stretch of the East-West Metro by October. After the inauguration of the Esplanade and Howrah Maidan stretch today, the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited (KMRCL) is eying for the final commissioning of the remaining leg of the East-West Metro corridor by October.

According to official sources, initially, the final commissioning was targeted in the month of June. “We had planned the commissioning in June. However, works of civil engineering are the main issue, which we are trying to complete latest by the end of May. After that testing, safety clearances are to be done that take a lot of time. We are hopeful that if the civil engineering works are completed by May, we would be able to commission it by October positively,” informed the managing director of Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited (KMRCL), V K Srivastava.

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As elaborated by Mr Srivastava, among the remaining works, construction of an egress shaft at Durga Pithuri Lane is the major and most challenging task. “There is a big pit, which is supported, from where the tunnel boring machine was withdrawn. We have constructed the tunnel, except for a small portion. We have to provide an egress arrangement there or which we had to dig to the full depth again for some more portions. That is the egress shaft,” explained the MD, KMRCL.

The implementing agency of the project is said to have completed the casting of the base slab with dimensions of 2.5 meters and 13.5 meters of the egress shaft that has a depth of 24 meters. “Going back to the disturbed area once again was difficult. It is at the spot where the main incident had happened. So we built deep piles all around it, continuously monitoring if those were getting bent or tilted. We are working slowly there as we do not want to take any chances. We are going ahead in a programmed manner without any problem or any unsafe condition. Now, we are going to start the construction of the walls and stairs,” added the MD.

According to Mr Srivastava, one of the remaining works is that of the cross passage (CP) 5B. “Initially, the CP was named as CP5 but we shifted to better soil strata and renamed it as 5B. There too, we are progressing slowly and steadily without any trouble,” claimed the MD.

Notably, the implementing agency had initially planned a cross passage named as CP2. The idea was later abandoned. As informed by Mr Srivastava, along with CP 5B, the KMRCL is also working on sealing the abandoned CP2.