DEBASHREE CHAKRABORTY
KOLKATA, 10 JULY 2022
Union Minister Smriti Irani is scheduled to inaugurate the Sealdah Metro Station under East- West Metro corridor at 5 PM on 11 July , which is set to link the commuters with the busiest railway terminals in the country.
Everyday several thousands of passengers come to Sealadh station from the suburban area train services. But as the East- West Metro was running partially between the Salt Lake Sector V to Phoolbagan Metro railway station the number of the passengers have been low till date.
Sector V is the information technology hub of the state and the functioning of the Sealdah station will further boost the burgeoning IT sector ( latest entrant L& T Infotech) in Salt Lake Sector V and New Town Rajarhat area in the coming days.
10.8 kilometres of the 16.6 kilometre long East West Metro, between Howrah and Phoolbagan , are subterranean, with the tunnel crossing below the Hooghly River. For the rest of the route , trains will run on elevated tracks, according to Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited, the executing agency of the mega project.
Ekalabya Chakraborty, Chief Public Relations Officer of Metro Railways, Kolkata Told The Travel and Tourism Times that the commercial train services from Sector V to Sealdah station will begin from 14 July.
The fare from Sealdah to Sector V will be Rs.20 and it will take 21 minutes to reach the final destination. The tero rials will run at an interval of 10 minutes on both sides. From 7 AM to 9 PM the metro rails will ply. Sunday the services will be closed.
From the Howrah Maidan Station, the union minister of women and child development will flag off the first train from Sealdah Railway Station in virtual mode.
The Sealdah Metro Station has the capacity to handle 45,000 passengers every hour and is almost 1.5 times bigger than the Phoolbagan Metro Station.
The three tier Sealdah Metro Station is East – West Metro Railway’s seventh stoppage. The Commissioner of Railway Safety has given clearance certificate to Sealdah Metro Station for operations in the 2.3 kilometres stretch on March this year.
The trail run of Phoolbagan to Sealdah and Sealdah to Phoolbagan was conducted on 31 July last year.
List of the stations are – Salt lake Sector V, Karunamoyee, Central Park, City Centre, Bengal Chemical, Salt Lake Stadium, Phool Bagan, Sealdah, Esplanade, Mahakaran, Howrah and Howrah Maidan.
The first phase of the East – West Metro corridor from Sector V to Salt lake stadium was inaugurated on 13 February 2020 by the then railway minister Piyush Goyal.
And on 5 October 2020, the seventh station – Phoolbagan metro was inaugurated.
The Kolkata Metro has two corridors- East- West and North South.
The special features of the Sealdah Metro station are : the station has interchange facility for commuters to access Eastern railway Train services.
The station has eight staircases, 18 escalators, five lifts and four platforms.
The project cost of setting up of the East West Metro Railways has escalated to Rs. 8,575 crores from the estimated original cost of Rs.4875 crores in July 2008 due to delay in commissioning of the project.
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