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The state government will appeal against the Calcutta high court order that has asked the state transport department to return within two weeks the land it had acquired for Central station of East-West Metro. As an alternative, the state will expedite the study of the realigned route via Esplanade, but the principal funding agency of the project, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has opposed that. “The evictees from BB Ganguly Street have already received the compensation and the land acquisition is complete. So we are moving the higher bench against the single bench order. RITES is studying the alternative alignment touching upon Esplanade. But the viability of the altered alignment is yet to be ascertained,” said transport secretary BP Gopalika. ... Read more...
Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation (KMRC) officials, who want to stick to the existing route, have locked horns with the transport department over the ‘proposed realignment’. While the transport department wanted the Metro to pass through Esplanade, instead of going through Bowbazar, JICA has expressed disapproval over the realignment. JICA, in fact, had threatened to pull out of the project if the state stuck to realignment of the corridor. The Japanese funding agency, which decided to lend Rs 2,253 crore for the estimated Rs 4,874-crore project, wrote to the state government in August that it might pull out of the venture. In its letter, JICA stated that realignment of the 16-km route would increase its length by nearly a kilometre, thereby causing cost overruns. According to Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation sources, there cannot be any deviation as far as Central station is concerned as it would have an interface with the north-south Metro. The East-West Metro was supposed go below the north-south Metro. The East West Metro — connecting Salt Lake Sector V with Howrah through the central business district — is already running behind schedule by 600-odd days or so. And now, a plan floated by the state transport department to realign the existing route of the East West Metro — to make it pass through Subodh Mullick Square and Esplanade before routing it to Howrah — has put question marks on its timely completion. Perhaps worse is the possibility of cost escalation. The new proposal involves an additional 1.7km, and the project with a sanctioned cost of Rs 4,874 crore will certainly increase and take more time, feel officials. The existing route, which begins from Salt Lake Sector V, crosses Karunamoyee, Central Park, City Centre, Bengal Chemical, Salt Lake, Phoolbagan, Sealdah, Central, Mahakaran and then goes under the Hooghly to merge at Howrah and end at Howrah Maidan. On the realigned route, the corridor will go through Subodh Mullick Square, Esplanade and Dalhousie (adjoining Laldighi) before merging into Howrah and Howrah Maidan.
The longdelayed East-West Metro has run into a fresh land hurdle. ... Read more...
The Calcutta high court has ruled that land acquisition at Bowbazar for the proposed Central station on the Salt Lake-Howrah Maidan route is invalid because the landlosers weren’t compensated within the stipulated timeframe of two years. Justice Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya has also asked the state transport department, which took possession of the land on January 24 this year, to return it within two weeks. The order spells fresh trouble for the Metro corridor that has been dogged by land acquisition problems and is running nearly two years behind schedule. A route diversion plan via Subodh Mullick Square and S N Banerjee road to bypass the land hurdle at Central has been turned down by the Japanese Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC), the project’s funding agency, due to cost escalation. The JBIC, which is lending Rs 2,253 crore for the Rs 4,874-crore project, wrote to the state government in August saying it would pull out if the realignment was made. The new route, with an additional 1.7km, now seems inevitable. The first phase of the project, a 9-km stretch from IT township of Salt Lake to Sealdah, is to be operational by March 2015. Compensation not paid on time, say petitioners The order was passed last Thursday on a plea by the Central Calcutta Citizens Welfare Association challenging the acquisition of premises 38, 39/2, 40(P), 41(P), 42, 42/3, 43, 43/1 and 43/2 B B Ganguly Street and 34(P) and 36(P) Mohim Chandra Das Sarani (Robert Street). Justice Bhattacharya held the land acquisition process had lapsed “due to the nonpublication of compensation award within the statutory period as provided in Section 11A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894”. The East-West Metro is to cross the Dumdum-Kabi Subhash Metro line at Central. Declaration for land acquisition under Section 6 of the Act was published in the Kolkata Gazette on August 27, 2009. The Collector published that the compensation of Rs 1,90,000 had been paid on November 15, 2011. The petitioners moved the high court since the compensation wasn’t paid within two years.
