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Bengal

HC to go through KMRCL report, next hearing set on November 7

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court will go through the report submitted by the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited (KMRCL) in connection with the collapse of houses due to tunnel boring work of East-West Metro in Bowbazar area. The next date of hearing has been fixed on November 7.

On September 3, a division bench of Calcutta High Court headed by T B Radhakrishnan had ordered immediate stoppage of the ongoing tunnel boring work undertaken for the East-West Metro project in Bowbazar area, after a petition was filed by an NGO. The court had also asked KMRCL authorities to submit a detailed report within two weeks. The court's decision came on a day when a three-storey building partially collapsed at Durga Pithuri Lane, while a few others developed fresh cracks. The KMRCL had formed a Building Assessment Committee (BAC) to categorise the buildings as per their extent of damage in Durga Pithuri Lane, Syakra Para Lane and Gour De Lane. The five-member committee had prepared a report after conducting the health study of the buildings that can be restored as well as the ones that need to be demolished.

The court had asked KMRCL to submit a report mentioning the reason behind the damage to the buildings and the measures being taken to restore them.

"Today (September 17), we have submitted the report of BAC to Calcutta High Court. The next hearing will be on November 7," said KMRCL chief engineer (civil) Biswanath Dewanjee.

A machine that was boring an East-West Metro tunnel in Bowbazar had hit a giant aquifer on August 31, after which water from the aquifer had flooded the tunnel and weakened the land surface.

The KMRCL engineers, with help from two foreign experts, had been able to bring down the degree of subsidence in the earth underneath the damaged buildings, through grouting and pumping of water into the earth from within the tunnel.

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