Kolkata: Metro rolls under Hooghly in India’s 1st under-river journey

INTERNATIONAL DESK: A piece of history was written around 11.45am on Wednesday when a Metro train emerged from the 520-metre tunnel below the Hooghly, marking India’s maiden under-river train travel.

The feat comes nearly 40 years after Metro started its Indian journey in Kolkata – a good 18 years before Delhi got its first Metro line – and 170 years after Indian Railways operated its first train between Bori Bunder and Thane.

With the successful run, Kolkata joined the likes of London, Paris, New York, Shanghai and Cairo, which also have train lines under the Thames, Seine, Hudson, Huangpu and the Nile.

“It’s a historic day not only for Indian Railways but for Kolkata as well. Test runs along the section have started today,” said P Uday Kumar Reddy, general manager, Metro Railway. When the train crossed the Hooghly and reached East-West Metro’s Howrah Station, the deepest Metro station in the country at 33 metres below surface, Reddy and KMRC MD H N Jaiswal were present along with an Afcons team for the customary “puja” and coconut-breaking ceremony. From here, the officials boarded the train to complete the journey till Howrah Maidan, the terminal station on the 16.6km East-West corridor.

Later, another train made the same journey. The two trains will be used in extended trials on the Esplanade-Howrah Maidan section over the next few months. KMRC hopes to complete the trials in five to seven months and get the safety nod to start commercial operations on the truncated section by the year-end.

E-W Metro eyes year-end run

The East-West Metro’s five-minute under-the-Hooghly journey on Wednesday morning was uneventful but the occasion momentous.

Construction of the twin tunnels that started at the Howrah Maidan end was completed without a hitch nearly six years ago. But barely 6.2km away, as a pair of TBMs traversed the congested Bowbazar neighbourhood, disaster struck. One of the TBMs hit an aquifer causing the ground above to cave-in, bringing down at least 23 houses and damaging several others. There were two more subsidences in the the area in 2022, further delaying the project.

With challenges yet to be resolved in the cave-in zone between Sealdah and Esplanade, KMRC and Metro authorities are trying to operate a truncated 4.8km service between Esplanade and Howrah Maidan from this year-end. The 9.4km section between Sector V and Sealdah is operational. Once the 2.5km Esplanade-Sealdah gap is plugged, the commute between Howrah Maidan and Sector V, Kolkata Metro’s Green Line, will take just 27 minutes. (TOI)