India’s first underwater metro tunnel is to get ready in Kolkata by 2023. The Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation is assigned to build the Kolkata East-West Metro line which will go beneath the Hooghly River.
The underwater tunnel will be connecting Howrah to Kolkata under the Hooghly river which is expected to be fully functional by 2023.
Out of the 16.6-km long east-west stretch, 520 metres will be under the river bed. The tunnel is built 33 metres below the riverbed.
According to the officials, almost 80 percent of the work of the east-west Howrah underwater metro station is completed and is expected to be ready and start the service by 2023.
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has already cleared the East-West corridor in 2006-07. And at that time it was costed at ₹4,874 crores and the deadline for the project was August 2012, which got postponed to 2015 and then later pushed to 2019 with the cost expected to scale to ₹8,575 crores.
“Important Passage work has also been done keeping in mind that if a technical problem arises inside the water tunnel area, passengers can be taken out through the special passage”
Mithun Ghosh, Site Supervisor
