Kolkata Metro budget hiked by Rs. 40 crore

‘Some of the projects are affected by encroachments’

February 27, 2015 01:18 am | Updated November 17, 2021 02:11 am IST - KOLKATA

The budget allocation for the existing Metro railway services as well as the pending Metro projects in West Bengal has been hiked by Rs. 40 crore in the 2015 Railway Budget, senior Railway officials said here on Thursday.

The total budget allocated for five Metro projects amounts to Rs. 580 crore, up from Rs. 540 crore last year, general manager of the South Eastern Railway and the chairperson of the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Radhey Shyam told journalists here on Thursday.

“Some of the projects are affected due to encroachments. There are about 800 encroachments. The other projects are in progress,” Mr. Radhey Shyam said.

The combined budget for the functional route of Noapara in the city’s north to Kavi Subhash in the city’s south, and the Dum Dum to Baranagar in the northern outskirts of the city is Rs. 50 crore. The Noapara to Kavi Subhash route is presently the only functional route while the rest are under various stages of construction.

“No details on the budget allocation for the East-West Metro are available yet as the project is also under the Ministry of Urban Development,” PRO, Metro Rail, R.N. Mahapatra told The Hindu .

No mention of East- West Metro project However, the budget does not refer to the allocation for the East-West Metro project, which is stuck in limbo for some years.

The ambitious project which plans to connect Kolkata’s satellite township Salt lake with Howrah across the river Hooghly has run into problems at Duttabad in the eastern fringes of the city where 60 families have refused to relocate claiming their livelihood would be affected.

Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the executing agency of the East-West Metro, and the State government’s Transport Department are at loggerheads over certain technicalities involved in the project.

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