Work will not commence till 16th September.
The tunnel boring work of East- West Metro will remain stalled for the time being, said Calcutta High Court. Division bench of TD Radhakrishnan said that work will not be started with High Court's approval. This order comes after three buildings collapsed in Central Kolkata's BowBazar area after work commenced on Saturday- Sunday.
The KMRC is constructing the East West Metro corridor connecting IT hub Sector V in Salt Lake to Howrah Maidan. Tunnels have been bored under the River Hooghly to connect the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah through the rapid transit system. The new metro corridor passes through some of Kolkata's most congested areas where there are many century-old buildings, some of which are in dilapidated condition.
Residents of several buildings in the area, where tunnel boring work for the East-West Metro is on, had earlier been shifted to hotels. According to the petitioners, currently, 323 families are facing a huge problem as they have been shifted owing to the construction.
Today, at the beginning of hearing, Chief Justice asked Metro authorities about the reason behind the problem and the current status. The Metro authorities said that this is unprecedented. Authorities said that they will pay for the renovation and reconstruction of all the houses affected by the tunnel boring process.
Metro authorities also said that they are getting in touch with experts from across the world who will do soil testing to understand what lead to water tearing down the valves of the boring machine which resulted in the tunnel getting flooded.
Metro has to submit the reports by September 16. Decision about starting work will be taken after the report is submitted. Boring of tunnel for 9.8 kilometres of East-West Metro is already in advanced stage. Only work for 1 km is yet to be done which will be stalled now owing to this hiccup.
On Sunday, after water entered tunnel, it lead to erosion of soft underground soil. Owing to that many buildings developed cracks and three houses in the Durga Pituri lane collapsed.
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