Firhad Hakim visits site where houses develop cracks, blames KMRC
kolkata: West Bengal Housing minister and city Mayor Firhad Hakim on Thursday visited the Bowbazar area where cracks appeared in several houses and blamed
Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation (KMRC) for it. Hakim claimed that the cracks on buildings at Durga Pitury Lane are likely to have occurred owing to continuing soil settlement in the area triggered by an accident over two-and-half years ago during tunnelling work.
"There is some irresponsibility on their (KMRC) part. During a meeting following
the accident in 2019, KMRC had said that it took the total engineering responsibility of that area," the mayor
told reporters during a visit to the affected area.Claiming
that KMRC, the executing agency for the East-West Metro project, has failed to take the responsibility, Hakim said that they should have taken care of the buildings before cracks developed in them.Tunnels of the long-awaited East-West Metro corridor pass under Bowbazar. Most of the buildings in the area are over a century old. A tunnel boring machine(TBM) had hit an aquifer on August 31, 2019, in Bowbazar leading to severe ground subsidence and the collapse of several buildings. The KMRC said that its priority is to prevent further cracks in buildings and 82 people of 21 families from at least five damaged houses at Durga Pituri Lane have been shifted to nearby hotels.The mayor said that the director-general of the building department of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has been asked to assess
how safe it would be to let the damaged buildings exist and a decision will be taken soon. He said that the KMC and KMRC will hold joint meetings to assess the fate of the damaged buildings. KMRC general manager, administration, A K Nandy said that engineers have been working in the Metro tunnels passing below the affected area since Wednesday night and the reasons for the cracks can be ascertained only after their assessment. "We are assessing the reasons for the cracks and working to prevent damage to any more buildings in the area" he said.Our main priority now is to prevent any further cracks in the affected houses and other buildings in the area," he said.
In August 2019, several houses at Durga Pituri Lane and adjoining areas were damaged owing to land subsidence caused by an aquifer burst during tunnelling work.
