Metro trains have made travel easy and convenient for sure, but as said and believed, you have to pay the price for everything. At least 12 houses at Madan Dutta Lane of Bowbazar developed cracks on Friday morning in central Kolkata following water seepage during work in the tunnel. This is the third such incident within three years. However, Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) had said that efforts will be made for the disbursal of monetary compensation within 15 days. People affected by East-West Metro construction will have to submit claim forms in a week, following which the claims will be verified by the police and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the official of the project’s executing agency, KMRCstated.
So far, 183 people have been shifted to hotels from the affected buildings. “The compensation claim forms will have to be submitted within a week, following which verification will be done in another seven days,” the official said. Meanwhile, a team of BJP councillors of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, including Meena Devi Purohit, Sajal Ghosh, and Vijay Ojha, visited Madan Dutta Lane on Monday. They interacted with some of the affected shop owners and local residents.
“We will speak to Metro authorities for a permanent solution to these uncertainties being faced by the residents and business owners of the area,” Purohit told reporters after the visit.
A camp, with representatives of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, KMRC, and police, has also been set up to help the affected people. Madan Dutta Lane is situated near Durga Pituri Lane, where buildings were damaged on two occasions earlier during tunnelling work.
On August 31, 2019, a tunnel boring machine (TBM) hit an aquifer leading to severe ground subsidence and the collapse of several buildings in Bowbazar, causing a delay in the completion of the project.
At least three houses were damaged again in May this year owing to ground subsidence caused by water seepage during work for joining the tunnels, one coming from the Sealdah side and the other from the Esplanade side. The East-West Metro corridor connecting Howrah Maidan and Sector V in Salt Lake are currently partially operational — between Sector V station and Sealdah.
Of the 16.6 km length of East-West Metro, the underground corridor constitutes 10.8 km — between Howrah and Phoolbagan — with a portion of the tunnel passing below the Hooghly river, while the rest is an elevated corridor, according to the KMRC official.
(With inputs from PTI)