KMRCL officials take stock of damaged houses at Bowbazar

Kolkata: Engineers from the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (KMRCL) visited the residences of Chaitanya Sen Lane in Bowbazar, which has developed fresh cracks on their walls.

The team assured the residents that they will undertake repair work of the cracks as soon as the tunnel boring machine (TBM) completes its digging work.

The engineers marked the cracked houses and installed machines to ascertain whether the cracks widen further, so that immediate measures can be taken. "The cracks that have developed are hairline and will not affect the foundation of the houses," an engineer of KMRCL said.

The KMRCL team that was led by chief engineer Biswanath Deewanjee, designated an engineer and an official who will supervise the buildings in and around the area where the TBM will be digging.

The TBM was stopped after residents complained of cracks on their walls on Thursday and is expected to resume work again on Sunday.

"They have informed me that they will repair the cracks once the digging work is complete. They have also told us to inform them immediately if they notice any further widening of the cracks," said Sukalyan Dutta. A KMRCL engineer informed that all the buildings that developed cracks fall within a 30 m radius of the tunnel-boring machine, which started moving from Nirmal Chunder Dey Street a few days ago. A number of families were evacuated from Chaitanya Sen Lane last week, ahead of the digging work.

KMRCL, the executing agency of the East-West Metro project, had started the tunnel boring work again on February 18. The TBM was earlier put on hold after a machine hit an aquifer on August 31, 2019, at Bowbazar area that led to severe ground subsidence and collapse of nearby buildings.

The Calcutta High Court had subsequently allowed the tunnel-boring work for the East-West corridor to resume on February 11.