The inauguration of the first phase of the East-West Metro corridor here on Thursday was marred by a boycott by the West Bengal government.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal inaugurated the 4.88-km stretch of the mega infrastructure project, connecting Sector V with the Salt Lake Stadium, but there were no representatives either from the Bengal government or from the Trinamool Congress at the event.
‘No mention in invite’
The absence found a mention in the speech of Mr. Goyal and Union Minister of State Babul Supriyo. Earlier in the day, Mayor and State’s Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim had said it was “indecent” on the part of the Centre not to mention the name of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the invitation card of the project.
Mr. Hakim said the project and other metro projects in the city were conceived by Ms. Banerjee herself. The invitation card, however, had the names of Barasat MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, MLA of Salt Lake and State Fire Minister Sujit Bose and Mayor of Biddhannagar Municipal Corporation Krishna Bose who also did not turn up.
At the inauguration event, the Railway Minister said the entire stretch of the project would be completed in the next two years. The metro services along the truncated route will be open to the public from Friday. Mr. Goyal also said compared to the other parts of the country, the eastern region has lagged in development and it is high time the States realised their potential.
The 16.6-km project will connect the Howrah Maidan on the other side of river Hooghly to Rajarahat Newtown in the northeastern fringes of the city. This is also the country’s first underwater Metro project. Tunnelling about 13 metres under the riverbed was successfully completed in 2017. Of the entire stretch, the elevated corridor is 5.8 km long, while the underground stretch measures 10.8 km.
The project, which had suffered inordinate delays due to route change last year, met another road block in September 2019 when several houses collapsed during underground tunnelling in the Bowbazar area. Tunnelling had to be stopped and hundreds of families had to be moved to a safe location. Earlier this week, the Calcutta High Court allowed tunnelling to resume.