Kolkata diary

No need of e-pass to travel in Kolkata Metro
Metro railway passengers in the city will not need an e-pass to avail the public transport mode from Monday. The number of trains will go up to 240 from 228 from Monday to Friday. The number of trains on Saturday and Sunday will remain unchanged at 228 and 102, said a Metro official. Tokens will not be issued for now and a smart card is a must for entering the Metro station. The e-pass system was introduced for access control at the gates when Metro services were resumed on September 14 after being suspended in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.

Traffic diversion to facilitate tunnel works
A portion of the Sealdah flyover, between its crossing with MG Road and Beleghata Road, will be closed to traffic from Friday night till Tuesday morning to facilitate the construction of Bowbazar-bound tunnel of East-West Metro. The portion will be closed for vehicular movement from 11 pm January 15 till 6 am on January 19. The tunnel boring work for the Metro corridor had resumed in June after remaining
suspended for three months due to Covid-19-induced lockdown. While Sealdahbound vehicles will face no restrictions, those coming from Shyambazar side in north Kolkata will be diverted from Rajabazar crossing. Once the tunnel corridor is fully functional, Metro services will link Kolkata’s Salt Lake Sector V with Howrah Maidan.

Private hospitals told to set up vaccination centres
The state health department on Wednesday requested private hospitals to set up vaccination site on their campuses. The interested healthcare facilities have been asked to send emails confirming their consent. Teams from the health department will conduct inspections to check whether the campuses have required infrastructure to run the vaccination drive. Private hospitals have been told that the government will only provide vaccine doses and syringes and hospitals have to deploy necessary human resources.

Universities to trim summer vacation
The 2021 summer vacation for firstyear BTech students at Calcutta University will be trimmed to compensate for the lost time in the academic period that was supposed to start in August but began digitally on last Wednesday. Jadavpur University has also decided to reduce the summer vacation to a week as BTech classes started only on January 11. The CU, however, is yet to finalise the revised duration of vacation, said an official. “The break could be reduced to seven days. Otherwise, we will not be able to start second year classes in August,” said the university official.

PRANAB MONDAL
Our correspondent in West Bengal pranabm@newindianexpress.com