East-West Metro Eyes Final Frontier

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East-West Metro eyes final frontier https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170703/jsp/calcutta/story_159869.jsp

Monday , July 3 , 2017

Front Page > Calcutta > Story IN TODAY'S PAPER Front Page Tweet Nation Calcutta East-West Metro eyes final frontier Bengal Foreign - Esplanade-bound lap of underground tunnels’ journey Business Sanjay Mandal Sports Horse Racing July 2: The last leg of the East-West Metro's underground journey towards Esplanade T2 Online begins this Thursday morning with a 350m curve beneath the Brabourne Road flyover, a loop Opinion of faith for the project after many missed deadlines and multiple bureaucratic hurdles. TT Hand in Hand Engineers from the construction company Afcons said the first of the two tunnel-boring machines stationed 32 metres below the ground on a plot of land along Strand Road would EPAPER move at a slower average speed than it did while crossing the Hooghly riverbed. Calcutta This is part of the second phase of the Metro project meant to connect Sector V in Salt Lake North Bengal with Howrah Maidan. A timeline has been drawn up for the onward journey of the two South Bengal machines, taking into account the challenges of evacuating nine buildings along the way. Jamshedpur Until last month, getting permission from the Archaeological Survey of India to build the Ranchi tunnels and a station in the vicinity of three heritage structures in the BBD Bag area had Patna been the primary hurdle for the project. Guwahati Metro charts the route, highlights the technical challenges and captures the changed mood Bhubaneswar ahead of the final journey. CITIES & REGIONS Metro Timeline North Bengal The task of evacuating two buildings - 42 Strand Road and 2 Raja Woodmunt Street - is to Northeast start at midnight on Wednesday, 12 hours before the first tunnel-boring machine gets going. Jharkhand "We expect the evacuation process to be completed by July 6. But if some of the occupants want, they can leave their houses even on July 7. Alternative arrangements for their stay Bihar have been made," said an official of the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the Odisha implementing agency for the project.

WEEKLY FEATURES A notice issued to the occupants states that the buildings would be evacuated for a period of Knowhow Mon eight days - from 12.01am on July 6 till July 13. Salt Lake Fri Afcons officials said they would evaluate the condition of the buildings once the machine is at 7days Sun a safe distance. If the structures are stable, the occupants would be allowed to return immediately. LEISURE Sudoku The machine burrowing the Calcutta-bound tunnel is scheduled to go under the Brabourne Road flyover on the morning of July 8. Sudoku New Crossword The flyover and the stretch of Brabourne Road between the crossing with Strand Road and Jumble Canning Street would remain closed to traffic between midnight on July 7 and 6am on July 11. Gallery The 350m curve would start at the junction of Brabourne Road and Strand Road. The ARCHIVES machine has to slow down for a bit after going past the two buildings that have been Since 1 March, 1999 identified as vulnerable.

PRESS RELEASES The second machine that is being used for the Howrah-bound tunnel is to start moving by the Businesswire India end of July. Engineers said the machine would close the gap with the first one by the end of August, maintaining a distance of about 50m. NewsVoir PR Newswire From that point, both machines would move simultaneously and reach the site of the proposed New Mahakaran station between late September and early October. EXTRAS Travel The site of the station - the minibus terminus at Laldighi - is likely to be handed over to the KMRC by the state government on Wednesday. From there, the machines will move for 700- THE TELEGRAPH odd metres along the boundary of Raj Bhavan and reach their destination by December. About Us The challenges Advertise Feedback The tunnel-boring machines would be moving under one of the more congested areas of the city, crossing at least nine buildings that Afcons has identified as being in a "very poor Contact Us condition". There is a possibility of subsidence (settlements) and damage to the buildings, an engineer said.

The presence of three heritage structures nearby - the Beth El Synagogue, the Maghen David Synagogue and Currency Building - is another challenge. "We have to be careful when the machines move near these structures. There are also other important buildings in the vicinity like Writers' and St. Andrew's Church," an Afcons official said.

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The machine for the Calcutta-bound tunnel would be moving at a speed of 15-17m a day in the beginning. Under the river, the machines had been travelling at an average speed of 14m a day.

After negotiating the 350m curve at the junction of Brabourne Road and Strand Road, the first machine would slow down to about 10m per day on an average.

"During the monsoon, dumping muck is difficult because we don't have access to many low- lying areas. This is one of the reasons why the speed has to be controlled," he explained.

The changed mood

August 2015: "There are some problems. But we will solve them and give Calcuttans their Metro," K. Subrahmanian, vice-chairman and managing director of Afcons, had said at an event in Calcutta to celebrate 150 years of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

July 2017: "Two years ago, I was pessimistic about the project. But today I am so happy that the project is moving. I had my doubts then but now I am confident," Subrahmanian said in Calcutta on Saturday.

The sense of optimism was visible in the frenetic activity at the construction site. "I had thought the project was all but dead. But today we are working day and night towards completion," said a railway official.

He said the new deadline of December 2020 seemed achievable.