Purple Line cost rises 4 times in 15 years

Kolkata: The estimated cost of the Joka-Esplanade Metro corridor, which was initially pegged at Rs 2,600 crore in 2010-11, has risen to Rs 10,360 crore this fiscal. With the project being stuck at Kidderpore, Metro officials fear the cost will increase further, and probably inordinately so.The Purple Line, which will link Joka with Esplanade, faced impasses ever since work started in July 2011. The project cost was first revised in July 2019, when the amount rose to Rs 4,800 crore, at a time when the then 16km elevated corridor was split into two phases. Subsequently, a 5-km stretch from Mominpore to Kidderpore went underground as the Army, custodian of the Maidan, did not allow RVNL, the implementing agency, to build an elevated viaduct through the Maidan.Apart from the various legal tangles that followed, the Majerhat bridge collapsed, pushing back the elevated Joka-Majerhat section further. In Feb 2022, the Purple Line received a major boost for the underground construction when the Army agreed to tunnel-borers digging twin tunnels under the Maidan.The first phase of the corridor was flagged off in March 2024, and now, services are operated from Joka to Majerhat. Just when the project gained momentum, as RVNL appointed contractors for the elevated construction beyond Majerhat to Kidderpore and further, the implementing agency faced another blow for the underground Kidderpore-Esplanade stretch: land for the underground Kidderpore station was unavailable. The proposed station is supposed to be built below Diamond Harbour Road, for which traffic needs to be diverted through a slice of Bodyguard Lines in Alipore. "For the past few years, the cops principally agreed to give up 837 sqm inside the Alipore Bodyguard Lines compound, but work can't start without the permit letter from the state," a railways official said.TOI had reported on Feb 11 about the hurdle for the construction of the Kidderpore station as the land, belonging to Kolkata Armed Police (KAP), was not being handed over to the railways. Despite the uncertainty over Kidderpore station, RVNL started work for the three other underground stations of Victoria, Park Street and Esplanade. The twin TBMs, each 90 m long and weighing 650 tonnes, are currently being lowered below the shaft built under St Thomas' Boys School in Kidderpore. The TBMs will first build 1.7 km from St Thomas' to Victoria and then, 950 m from Victoria to Park Street.Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, while speaking in the Parliament on March 17, had sought state support for railway projects in Bengal. He mentioned the Kidderpore station. "The Kidderpore station only requires land from the state govt, which would allow the work to be finished quickly," the minister had said.