One step back: Agency bows out of Purple Line’s Esplanade stn work

Kolkata: Contractors L&T have backed out of building the Purple Line's Esplanade station because of the uncertainty over timelines, with the BC Roy Market traders refusing to budge to make room for the station.RVNL, which is implementing the 14km Joka-Esplanade corridor or the Purple Line, will invite tenders for the station all over again. The agency has been struggling for the last five years to free land needed for the terminal Esplanade station. It has built swank stalls for a temporary market after vacating the Mounted Police Paddock at Esplanade. But the BC Roy Market traders are refusing to move out even after a meeting with mayor Firhad Hakim at the KMC headquarters. They want a written undertaking from the Army, custodian of the Maidan. The defence ministry, on the other hand, considers the market illegal.The Esplanade station box (300m x 40m) is supposed to come up on the spot where the ramshackle BC Roy Market stands. The traders earlier agreed to RVNL's plans to move to the temporary stalls and be reinstated atop the new station at Esplanade once the Purple Line construction was over.Construction of the Esplanade station was supposed to begin in 2023 with a three-year deadline. Last month, the Esplanade bus depot was shifted to Curzon Park to make way for the station, but land for the main box is still unavailable. L&T has now written to its client (RVNL) that it was not keen to build the Esplanade station, sources said.In June 2023, Larsen & Toubro won the Purple Line's 5.05km underground civil construction contract between Mominpur and Esplanade. This northern and final section includes twin tunnels dotted by four underground stations at Kidderpore, Victoria, Park Street and Esplanade. RVNL invited bids for the contract in July 2022 for Rs 2,571.2 crore.L&T will continue work on the Victoria Memorial and Park Street stations and Kidderpore stations. It has deployed tunnel boring machines (TBMs) Durga and Divya to dig from the shaft at St Thomas' Boys School at Kidderpore. The TBMs are headed towards Victoria station, from where they will be relaunched to start burrowing till Park Street. The cut-and-cover method – not machines – will be deployed for the tunnels between Park Street and Esplanade.