Several Residents in Kolkata's Bowbazar Area Moved to Hotels as Work Resumes For E-W Metro: Official

With the resumption of the tunnelling work for the underground section of the East-West Metro corridor, authorities here have begun shifting some residents of the Bowbazar area of central Kolkata to nearby hotels and guest houses, as a precautionary measure.

No damage has been caused to any house, some of which are over a century old, since the recommencement of work on Saturday, a senior official said on Tuesday.

"Residents living in the vicinity of the construction work have been evacuated, as a precautionary measure. These people have been put up in nearby hotels and guest houses," the senior official of the Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation (KMRC) -- the executing agency of the East-West Metro project -- said here.

Tunnelling work for the 16.6-km-long rapid transit system, connecting the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah, has been hampered in the past for various reasons, including the coronavirus-induced lockdown and an accident that had happened in August last year.

An aquifer had burst in Bowbazar in the congested lanes of central Kolkata during the tunnel-boring work on August 31 last year, following which several houses had collapsed, or suffered damages, owing to huge ground subsidence in the area.

With one of the two tunnel-boring machines getting damaged beyond repair in the accident, construction activities were subsequently delayed.

In March again, work was put on hold after the imposition of the lockdown.

Prior to the accident, two TBMs were working parallelly, boring tunnels for the up and down lines of the East-West Metro corridor.

The Commissioner of Railway Safety has, meanwhile, granted permission for extension of services from Yuva Bharati Krirangan Stadium to Phoolbagan stations of the East-West Metro Railway last week.

On February 13, the 4.88-km-long first phase of the East-West Metro, connecting Sector V in Salt Lake with Yuva Bharati Krirangan Stadium, got functional.