Tunnelling work of East-West Metro likely to start in 1st week of August

Kolkata: The tunnelling work of the East-West Metro near Bowbazar, that stopped after more than 10 workers were detected COVID-19 positive, is expected to resume in the first week of August.

"We will make small groups of workers. Maintaining COVID-19 protocol, they will work in different shifts. We will soon start East-West Metro construction work. It will start after within a week," said an official of Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited (KMRCL), the East-West Metro project implementing

agency.

The tunnelling work near Bowbazar was stopped on July 7 after 14 workers (labourers and supervisors involved in operating the tunnel-boring machine or TBM) have been tested COVID-19 positive.

While tunnel boring machine Chandi became redundant after hitting against an aquifer last year on August 31, its twin Urvi took up the task of burrowing the remaining portion covering a length of around 1.8km.

The East-West Metro starts from Salt Lake Sector V to Howrah Maidan covering a distance of 16.5 kilometres.

The path of the East-West Metro will be over ground from Sector V till Subhas Sarovar station and will then go underground. In the entire stretch, around 520 metres of tunneling has been done underneath the river Hooghly.