বাংলায় পড়ুন
The safety audit report from Independent Safety Authority (ISA) has not yet arrived and as a result work for East West Metro Rail has further got delayed.
Sources at the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited (KMRCL) said that between March 4 and 7, officials of ISA had done the safety audit of signalling system for the first phase of East West Metro. KMRCL officials had expected the report to arrive by the end of March and had been making next plan accordingly but unavailability of the report has led to the delay in the next plan of action. According to previous plans, the first phase of East West Metro was to begin shortly given the go ahead for commercial operations arrived in April itself. A senior official of KMRCL said reports from ISA generally arrived within three weeks but this time it had been further delayed and as a domino effect the inauguration of the first phase would be delayed as well.
"Once the report arrives, it needs to be scrutinised as well and once a complete report is ready, it will be presented to the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) with an application to initiate operations. If there is any suggestion in the ISA report, those need to be looked into as well before applying to the CRS. Once that is okayed by the CRS, operations can begin,"
the official said but added that since the ISA report itself was yet to arrive, the entire process would be delayed.
It was found out that in the first phase, East West Metro will start plying from Salt Lake Sector V to Salt Lake Stadium, covering 4.88 km. Six stations have been built on this route.
In another development, KMRCL sources said that digging of tunnel from Esplanade area towards SN Banerjee Road had begun on the route of East West Metro Rail. The tunnel has progressed about 50 m underground. Residents of buildings in the ‘influence zone’ have been asked to relocate till the work of tunnels was over. Digging of second tunnel on SN Banerjee Road is also expected to begin on April 15 as it had been halted so far owing to technical reasons. In that case too, residents of houses on the influence zone would be shifted to hotels.
