Mayor meets Transport dept, Metro officials

Mayor Sovan Chatterjee on Wednesday met senior officials of Metro Railway and state Transport department to resolve the impasse that had affected construction of various Metro railway projects in the city. Alapan Bandopadhyay, principal secretary, Transport department, senior officials of Metro Railway and the owners who had given land for Metro construction voluntarily were also present at the meeting.

may be recalled that recently, a meeting was held in the conference hall in Nabanna in the presence of the state chief secretary Basudeb Bandopadhyay to expedite various on-going metro projects.

Chatterjee said the problem that had cropped up at Majerhat affecting construction of Joka BBD Bagh Metro had been sorted out and construction would resume in full swing.

Because of the problem, construction had been badly hit after Ajanta Cinema on Diamond Harbour Road. Similarly, the work at New Garia- Dum Dum Metro will start soon as the problems have been taken care of. Talks were on with the stall owners of VIP market and they have agreed to shift to a nearby place. Chatterjee said that some land owners who had given land for construction of Metro Railway had not received compensation worth Rs 60 lakh and he had asked Metro authorities to ensure that they were paid the compensation.

The state government had given stress to complete the ongoing Metro projects and instructions had been given to the senior officials to sort out the problems by opening dialogue with local people. "Local people will have to be taken into confidence for completion of the ongoing projects," Chatterjee said adding: "The city's connectivity will go up once the projects are completed."

Once the Metro railway projects are completed, the load on the road transportation will be greatly reduced. The state Transport department has given stress on water transportation and steps have been taken to improve infrastructure like repairing of the jetties etc.