Bowbazar residents return home; no collapse threat, says KMRCL

Kolkata: Residents of Bowbazar area continue to return from hotels to home after getting assurance from Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited (KMRCL) of no threat of house collapse in the area due to East-West Metro construction work.

"We shifted to our house at 2.10 pm today (September 26, 2019). We entered our house after receiving 'statutory notice' from KRMCL," said Somnath Banerjee, resident of 2 B, Gour De Lane.

He reiterated that the KMRCL had issued a letter mentioning that the site engineers will inspect the premises immediately on return and identify any minor crack appeared due to tunnel incident. In case, any crack appears, it will be taken up for repairing within seven days.

While the KMRCL had shortlisted 14 houses that are safe and residents can return to their houses, a few residents had returned to hotels claiming fresh cracks in their buildings, no water supply and electricity on Wednesday.

"We came to our house in Gour De Lane on Wednesday. We found big crack, no electricity and water connection. We again shifted to Jai Shree Hotel. The KMRCL engineers had assured us that they will carry out the repair work and then we will shift to our house," said Bishwanath Baroi, resident of 3 Gour De Lane.

While several houses at Durga Pithuri Lane and Syakra Para Lane have partially or wholly collapsed, cracks developed in houses at Gour De Lane. The KMRCL had formed a team to examine 70 buildings. It had submitted a report on 54 houses after the buildings in the area had developed structural damage following subsidence on August 31. Out of these 54 houses, 27 needed to be demolished.

It may be mentioned that KMRC is executing the 16.6 km long EW Metro corridor, which will connect Salt Lake Sector V with Howrah Maidan.