Kolkata Metro
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Suicides
2014, 2015
The Times of India Aug 23 2015
Monotosh Chakraborty
Kolkata Metro sees drop in cases in 2015 As opposed to suicides going up in Delhi Metro, Kolkata Metro has seen a reverse trend. Officials said 11 people have attempted suicide on India's oldest Metro network so far this year as compared to 20 in 2014. Four people lost their lives but authorities say the number is far lower than 2014, that is 14.
Officials of Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation said the decrease in suicide attempts can be attributed to several preventive measures being taken by authorities. Metro officials not only closely monitor passengers using CCTV cameras but also patrol platforms in a bid to keep passengers from jumping before trains.
“Four RPF officers patrol platforms before trains arrive. No passenger is allowed to cross the yellow line on the platform during that time,“ said an official. If we find that a passenger is very close to the edge, we switch off the power line to the third rail, an official added.
People with suicidal tendencies usually show some signs before committing the act. “Some indicators can be spotted while monitoring passengers on CCTVs. After we rescue the passenger, we try talking to himher to find out what the problem is,“ said Rabi Mahapatra, spokesman, Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation.
But despite the vigil, some people still slip through. “I remember one such case. A man was reading a newspaper on the platform. Just as the train was entering the station, he dumped the newspaper and p jumped on the tracks,“ said e Mahapatra.
Metro officials feel that counselling by NGOs has als so helped bring down the suie cide rate at stations. NGO d Lifeline Foundation has been operating two helplines for Metro commuters for over 10 years. “Instead of advising, we try to befriend the caller. We don't judge and ask callers to tell us more about themselves which helps calm them down,“ said Amitabha Ray , deputy director, Lifeline Foundation.
A study of suicide attempts at stations showed that most people were below 45 years of age.
Metro authorities have ruled out the possibility of setting up glass screen doors on platforms, as is the norm abroad, to help prevent suicides. “We have introduced several video programmes and short films on suicide to raise awareness among commuters,“ said a Metro official.
India's first "underwater metro tunnel"
2017
India's first underwater metro tunnel completed, Jun 23, 2017: The Times of India
HIGHLIGHTS
The tunnel is a crucial link for the 16.4 km-long mass rapid transport project being constructed by the Kolkata Metro at an estimated cost of around Rs 9,000 crore.
The operation of the East-West Metro Corridor in the first phase between Salt lake and Phoolbagan in the city will start next year.
Tunnelling from the Howrah end started in the last week of April and reached the Kolkata end on June 20. (TOI photo)Tunnelling from the Howrah end started in the last week of April and reached the Kolkata end on June 20.
The tunnelling work under the Hooghly river, the first such underwater project in the country, to provide metro connectivity between Howrah and Kolkata has been completed.
The tunnel is a crucial link for the 16.4 km-long mass rapid transport (MRT) project being constructed by the Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation (KMRC) at an estimated cost of around Rs 9,000 crore.
"India has joined a select band of nations. Another rare feat achieved by Kolkata after getting the first metro railway in the country in 1984.
"The KMRC team, including engineers from abroad, has completed the construction of India's first underwater tunnel under the Hooghly river," Satish Kumar, the MD of KMRC, said.
He said tunnelling from the Howrah end started in the last week of April and reached the Kolkata end on June 20.
Two tunnels, for onward and return journeys, have been bored 13 metre beneath the riverbed and 30 metre from the ground. The operation of the East-West Metro Corridor in the first phase between Salt lake and Phoolbagan in the city will start next year. The first rake, built by BEML, will arrive in December this year, Kumar said.
KMRC has got all the necessary clearances from different agencies. Work on construction of the Esplanade station in the city's central business district has already started, Kumar said.
He said the operational headway for the full phase would be 2.5 minutes which is enough to handle the passenger load, particularly at Sealdah and Howrah metro stations.
2023: completion
Ajanta Chakraborty, April 13, 2023: The Times of India
Kolkata : A piece of history was written around 11. 45am on Wednesday, when a metro train emerged from a 520-metre tunnel below the Hooghly, marking India’s maiden under-river train travel.
The feat comes nearly 40 years after metro started its journey in India in Kolkata — agood 18 years before Delhi got its first metro line — and 170 years after Indian Railways operated its maiden train between Bori Bunder and Thane.
With the successful run, Kolkata joined the likes of London, Paris, New York, Shanghai and Cairo that also have train lines under theThames, Seine, Hudson, Huangpu and Nile rivers, respectively. “It’s a historic day not only for Indian Railways, but for Kolkata as well. Test runs along the section havestarted today,” said P Uday Kumar Reddy, general manager, Metro Railway.
When the train crossed the Hooghly and reached EastWest metro’s Howrah station,the deepest metro station in country at 33 metres below surface, Reddy and Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) MD H N Jaiswal were present along with an Afcons team for the customary “puja” and coconut-breaking ceremony. From there, the officials boarded the train to complete the journey till Howrah Maidan, the terminal station on the 16. 6 km East-West corridor.
Later, another train made the same journey. The two trains will be used in extended trials on the EsplanadeHowrah Maidan section over the next few months.
The five-minute under-theHooghly journey on Wednesday morning was uneventful, but the occasion momentous.
How the underwater metro was built
Ajanta Chakraborty, April 15, 2023: The Times of India
From: Ajanta Chakraborty, April 15, 2023: The Times of India
On April 12, India’s first Metro network again made history when trains ran through the Hooghly. The launch of Kolkata Metro’s North-South corridor in 1984 was no mean achievement, but the latest feat on the EastWest route makes it India’s answer to London’s ‘Underground’ that dives below the Thames, and the Paris Metro going under the Seine.
Wednesday’s event was a precursor to the line’s eventual commissioning early next year. Two six-coach rakes were transported from the under-construction Esplanade Metro station in Kolkata’s central business district (CBD) to East-West Metro’s Howrah Maidan terminal station via the Hooghly, a distributary of the Ganga.
Trials with the empty rakes have already started, and once all the systems like signals, ventilation, platform screen doors and fire alarms are synchronised, the section, including the 520m underwater stretch, should get the safety regulator’s nod for commercial launch of India’s first underwater Metro.
For those involved in the Rs 10,000-crore East-West project, the first crossing was a momentous occasion because the 520m twin tunnels had been ready and waiting for almost six years. When the line is commissioned, you will shoot across the river at a depth of 12 storeys below the water’s surface in less than a minute, an engineer from Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency, told TOI. Like the London and Paris river tunnels, Kolkata’s river tunnels have been built in such a way that you won’t know the underwater part from the land, he said.
An Engineering Marvel
The East-West route, also known as Green Line or Line 2, will be 16. 6km long but currently runs a truncated 9. 4km between Sector V in east Kolkata and Sealdah, oneof Asia’s busiest railway stations. It sees about 50,000 users daily, but the ridership will shoot up once the full line opens. The contract to build the river tunnels was awarded in 2010. For the project, construction major Afcons formed a strategic joint venture with the Russian company Transtonnelstroy that had experience of building a road under the sea in Iran. Afcons started digging the Hooghly tunnels in April 2017and completed them in July 2017 – taking all of 67 days.
Thousands of tonnes of mud was dug underneath a flowing river to build foolproof transportation tracks. The bottom of the tunnel is 26m from the water’s surface and trains will ply 16m below the riverbed. Tunneling below the river was a challenge, say engineers. Waterproofing and designing the gaskets were major issues because the tunnels have been builtfor a service of 120 years.
“Not a drop of water can enter the river tunnels. There are hydrophilic gaskets in between the concrete of the tunnels. If water enters the tunnels, the gaskets will open up,” explained an engineer. The material used can withstand quakes in seismic zone 3, in which Kolkata lies. Afcons deployed a highly experienced tunnel crew, in case it became necessary to enter the cutting chamber of the tunnel boring machine (TBM). If water entered the TBMs they would have shut down like a submarine for safe evacuation.
Unlike conventional tunneling, river tunneling, once started, can’t stop because “stoppages would attract ground loss, leakages and various other problems,” said an official. So, a robust plan with 24x7 crew deployment was in place. “The TBM’s cutter-head interventions were carried out just before plunging into the river so that no intervention was needed once inside the river. ” The TBMs were equipped withemergency inflatable seals, shield joints, etc, to stop leaks and could dig through poor soil conditions. The tunnels were aligned to pass through “comparatively competent geology” below the river. So they had to go deeper below the riverbed. “The TBMs were constantly supervised so that there were no functional issues,” an engineer said.
To match river depth and the tunnel’s gradient, Afcons also had to build India’s deepest Metro station – 30m below Howrah railway station – and the country’s deepest ventilation shaft at 43. 5m under the ground. The river tunnels and the ventilation shaft near the bank are a stone’s throw from Howrah bridge, another engineering marvel built last century to connect Kolkata and its twin. In 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, Afcons completed the 15-storey deep ventilation shaft next to the bridge, on the Kolkataside riverbank. It is a crucial feature because it will pump air in and out of the river tunnels and be used for evacuating passengers during emergencies.
Some Hurdles Remain
After crossing the river below Howrah Bridge, the Metro tunnels snake through Kolkata’s congested streets to reach Mahakaran station that’s coming up below Laldighi at Dalhousie Square, and burrow beyond to Esplanade.
The daunting task of tunneling through Kolkata’s mostly soft soilseemed to have ended, but exactly a year ago the project faced two setbacks. Land subsidence occurred in May 2022 and again in October in the Bowbazar (central Kolkata) zone, jeopardising the East-West corridor’s final run to its Howrah terminal side.
The 2. 5km stretch from Esplanade to Sealdah has proved tricky before also. In August 2019, subsidence resulted in houses falling like a pack of cards. So, the authorities have decided to skirt the “troubledsection” for now and do a truncated 4. 8km run between Esplanade and Howrah Maidan sometime next year.
“Once East-West Metro joins Kolkata and Howrah, it should cater to a million commuters by 2035,” a KMRC official said. That will take at least two more years, depending on the hurdles at the Bowbazar cave-in zone. And then, the East-West Metro will run its full route from Sector V to Howrah Maidan, via the Hooghly, in 27 minutes flat.
New corridors
2017: tardy progress
The Indian Railways is unhappy with the pace of work in Kolkata Metro which is reflected in the average fund allocation of just around Rs 400 crore every year for the last three years.
The anticipated cost of 64 km of the new Metro corridor was around Rs 8,639 crore, but the total spending on the project to date is only Rs 2,018 crore in the last seven years that is mere Rs 288 crore a year. A top railway ministry source said with the current pace of spending and execution, it will take another 17 years for the project to be completed.
The corridor, announced in the Rail Budget 2010-11 by then railway minister Mamata Baneerjee, was imposed on the national transporter. Under pressure from the top, the railways entrusted the task to PSU--Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), which had no experience of Metro construction. The corridors include Baranagar-Barrackpore & Dakshineshwar (14.5km), Dum Dum airportNew Garia via Rajarhat (32 km) and Joka-BBD Bagh via Majer hat (16.72km). A railway official said, “On an average only Rs 400 crore is being allocated every year and considering the current trend the Kolkata Metro will take another 17 years to complete the project with balance cost of around Rs 6,621crore.“
He said, “The physical progress is very disappointing.“
Out of six Metro corridors, work hasn't started on Baranagar-Barrackpore and the status of the other five corridors too is no better where physical progress is ranging bteween 12% to 37%, an official said.
Despite reservations from many in the rail bureaucracy , the projects were handed over to RVNL ignoring vehement protest by Kolkata Metro, also an arm of the Indian Railways which built the first Metro in Kolkata and is also operating them successfully . Top mandarins in Rail Bhawan are upset with the slow pace of work as the doubts expressed at time of handing over work to RVNL are coming true after six years.
Officials fear the poor pace of execution will lead to time overruns and cost overruns, causing a big hole in strained finances of the railways.
