'Sealdah to Phoolbagan Metro service in East-West Corridor to start next month'

KOLKATA: Sealdah to Phoolbagan service in the East West Corridor of Metro will start soon.

"The Metro service between Phoolbagan-Sealdah will start in March," said state Transport minister Firhad Hakim, after conducting a high-level meeting of the state Transport Department, metro railway officials, its implementing agencies and the Army was held at the office of the Kasba Transport Department on Wednesday.

A detailed discussion on the hurdles, encroachments and other obstructions was discussed during the meeting.

Hakim, who is also the Mayor of Kolkata, pointed out that the underground tunnel of Joka-B. B. D. Bagh Metro project is expected to affect drainage and drinking water pipes of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation at Kidderpore.

Joka-B. B. D. Bagh Metro project had received the much-awaited green signal from the Army in Calcutta High Court recently.

"As work from Joka to Taratala is done, we had urged the Metro railway authorities for final commissioning of the stretch. However, the Rail Board is said to have plans of opening it only when the work till Majerhat is completed. The work till Majerhat will take another two to three months and then the stretch will be operational," pointed out Hakim.

"It has been decided that a meeting will be held at KMC to discuss where we will have to reorganize and which pipes will have to be broken for the upcoming metro project at Kidderpore," added Hakim.

While the state Transport Department will provide funds for rehabilitation of encroachers at Noapara where the project is faced with obstructions, it has urged the South Dum Dum Municipality to the needful at the earliest.

East-West Metro now runs a truncated 6.9-km service between Sector V and Phoolbagan but the number of passengers availing this service is not much. The Metro authorities are hopeful that once the corridor extends by another 2.3 km till Sealdah, the number of commuters will witness a significant rise.