Futnani occupants get evacuation notice

KOLKATA: The Raj-era Futnani Chambers on SN Banerjee Road was served evacuation notice on Wednesday ahead of the East-West Metro tunnelling scheduled for next week.
The notice issued by Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency of East-West Metro, asks residents to stay out from April 28 to May 3, when the west-bound tunnel boring machine (TBM), nicknamed Chandi, will burrow below the building.
Around 150 people living or working in offices inthe mini-township, popularly called the “Bata building”, will have to vacate the premises. Sixty of them will be put up in a central Kolkata hotel.
TBM Chandi, currently digging below the KMC headquarters along SN Banerjee Road, is due to reach Futnani Chambers on Sunday night after covering Hogg Street.
For the past one month, ITD-ITD Cementation, the construction company building the Metro, has been taking elaborate mitigation measures to strengthen the 100-cottah building complex, which tops the list of 224 unsafe buildings lined up between SN Banerjee Road and Raja Subodh Mullick Square, as per the building condition survey conducted by the Metro authorities before the tunnelling started.
To prepare the crumbling structure for the TBM’s advent, 30 workers from ITD-ITD Cementation have been propping up the building till cantilever section, including the cracked staircase and scaffolding up to the roof slab of each floor.
Officials said tonnes of steel and truckloads of cement were used to strengthen Futnani Chambers. “All floors have been fitted with steel props to support the walls and ceilings inside. Tilt metres have been placed in various corners for monitoring the slightest displacement. We shall look out for damages after the TBM passes,” said an engineer.
The 2.45km Esplanade-Sealdah stretch via Nirmal Chandra Street and BB Ganguly Street is the last leg of underground tunnelling of 16.6km East-West Metro.
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