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No Merger Of Twin Metro Corridors

By Unregistered Visitors, Section News
Posted on Fri Jun 08, 2007 at 01:35:40 AM EST

The integration of the upcoming East-West Metro with the existing north-south one will just not happen. The East-West Metro would have a separate entity under Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), while the north-south corridor would continue to be under Indian Railways.

The twin corridors would physically meet at Central Station, though the platform for the East-West Metro would be below the one for the existing Metro Railway. Earlier, the chief architect of Delhi Metro, Sridharan, had proposed that the present metro be merged with the east-west under KMRC and that the railway ministry should hand over the country's first metro to KMRC for a token price of Rs 1. Besides the separate entity, there will be more dissimilarities than similarities in the two systems. Unlike the broad-gauge track of the north-south corridor, the eastwest one would run on standard gauge rails.

"Structurally, the east-west rakes would be leaner in size, but much faster than the north-south one. Unlike the construction of north-south corridor, the construction of East-West Metro would not disrupt overground traffic," said B K Sadhu, chief traffic and transportation engineer.

The first phase of chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's pet project would be its western end that will terminate at Howrah Maidan. Both Howrah and Howrah Maidan stations would be underground. In the second phase, there are plans to extend the Metro till Santragachi. After Howrah, Santragachi will be the most important point of embarkation. Unless the Metro is extended to Santragachi, the optimum benefit will not be derived, Sadhu added.

Similarly, on the eastern end, the Metro may be extended to Rajarhat. But for the time being, it will run from Salt Lake's Sector V to Howrah Maidan. The depot would be set up at Salt Lake Central Park for which 40 acres would be transferred from the urban development department to KMRC. From near Swabhumi, the Metro would be elevated on track. The elevated portion is 5.7 km while the underground section, including the passage under the Ganga river bed, will be 8 km long.

For construction of the car shed at Central Park, Japan Bank of International Cooperation the principal funding agency has asked for a detail environment impact analysis.

The state pollution control board has already given the green signal for the project. The transport department, with the help of RITES, has made a detailed outline on how to counter environmental degradation.

Source:The Times Of India,08-06-07

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