Joka-BBD Bag project stumbles again

KOLKATA: The Joka-BBD Bag metro network that many believed had got over its trouble regarding land has stumbled once again. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) that had agreed in principle to allow implementing agency Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) to proceed with construction near the Kolkata Maidan has still not granted formal clearance. As it is, Metro Railway has had to give up plans for the Mominpur station.Officials feel that these developments are destroying the whole purpose of the metro link that promised to give people of Kidderpore, Behala and beyond a smooth and fast mode of transportation to the heart of the city.
“We are not even sure whether the link will go up to BBD Bag. In all probability, the link may end at Esplanade. If things come to that, we may even terminate it at Park Street. Esplanade and Park Street are the stations that will have interfaces with the existing North-South corridor. With the kind of delay we are facing, it has to be considered whether there is any need to take the link up to Esplanade even. After all, the existing metro link connects Esplanade and the East-West corridor will have a station at BBD Bag,” an official said.
Ideally, metro stations should be at a distance of a km from one another. The maximum deviation possible is 0.8-1.2 km. The idea is that a metro commuter should not have to board any other mode of transportation to reach his or her destination after leaving a metro station. As the Mominpur station isn’t coming up the distance between Majerhat and Kidderpore will be nearly 3 km. There is a same problem with the E-W Metro corridor. The Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation hasn’t received permission to build a station at Subodh Mullick Square as hawkers would have to be evicted. Under the new alignment, there will be no stop between Sealdah and Esplanade.
“This is extremely frustrating. We realize the trouble that people along Diamond Harbour Road are going through. Try as we may, we can’t speed up the work any further. Initially, there was trouble over acquiring land for the Joka car shed. Then, we would not get sand for piling. There is no system in place and people started demanding whatever they chose to for sand. We had hoped that the trouble over land belonging to the MoD and Ministry of Finance has come to an end. This doesn’t seem to be the case,” the official added.
Many feel that despite a lot of lip-service, due importance is not being given to the ongoing metro projects in Kolkata. It has been 31 years since the existing North-South corridor came into being. After that metro links came up in several other cities. In Delhi, the length of the network is nearly 10 times of that in Kolkata but there has not been any noteworthy extension to country’s first underground link.