Kolkata Metro: Railway To Start Commercial Run in East-West Section in June-July

Metro Railway general manager P Uday Kumar Reddy on Friday said it is targeting June-July to start commercial operation in the entire route of the East-West alignment between Salt Lake Sector V and Howrah Maidan.

Completion of the project has suffered delays owing to an aquifer burst at Bowbazar in central Kolkata on August 31, 2019, leading to severe ground subsidence and the collapse of a number of buildings. Two more water leakage incidents occurred at the same site in 2022 during tunneling and construction work.

“Commercial service is expected to start in the entire route in June-July,” he told reporters during a press conference. The Salt Lake Sector V, which is the information technology hub, to Sealdah stretch of the East-West Metro corridor is commercially operational at present and train service in the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade stretch is expected to start soon following necessary clearances.

Out of the 16.6 km length of East-West Metro, the underground corridor constitutes 10.8 km between Howrah Maidan and Phoolbagan with the tunnel passing below the Hooghly river, while the rest is an elevated corridor. Kolkata Metro created history in April 2023 when its rake ran through a tunnel under a river, the Hooghly, for the first time in the country.

Reddy announced that the Kolkata Metro is going to adopt the Automatic Train Operation (ATO) system in the Salt Lake Sector V- Sealdah stretch. “Clearance from the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) has been received for commissioning the system on this stretch,” the general manager said.

He said that in the ATO mode, a train accelerates, decelerates, controls and arranges motoring activities automatically. In the ATO mode, a Metro train will move from one station to the next station automatically after a long press of ‘ATO departure’ push button by the motorman, an official said, adding that train doors will open automatically after arrival at a station.

Keeping the motorman’s physical operation to the minimum, the person will have to press the ‘door close’ push button before starting the train, the official said.