Work for the seven elevated stations of the New Garia-Airport Metro corridor along the 7-km stretch between Novotel hotel and City Centre II in New Town will start next month. Work for the seven metro stations had stopped in December 2018 after IL&FS abandoned the project following its insolvency.
ITD ITD-Cementation, recently emerged as the lowest bidder for the Rs 292-crore work for the seven stations. In fact, not much progress was made by IL&FS, which had been awarded the contract for a value of Rs 299.76 crore in March 2014. Work was extremely slow paced and IL&FS had missed its 2017 deadline. As per the contract, work was supposed to be completed in three years from the date of issue of the letter of acceptance. “Only the structures of the stations had been built when IL&FS left the work in December 2018. Construction will resume next month,” an official of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) said yesterday (Tuesday, 4th July 2020).
ITD ITD-Cementation has been given three years to finish work for the seven stations covering 7 km from Novotel hotel till City Centre II. The seven metro stations starting with sub Central Business District (CBD)-1 and ending at Titumir for the line 6 of Kolkata Metro, which will connect Kavi Subhas station at New Garia to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport are Titumir, Sub CBD-2, Convention Centre, New Town, CBD 2, CBD-1 and Sub CBD-1.
A total of 24 elevated stations will come up on the New Garia-Airport line. RVNL is trying to fast-track Phase-1, covering 5 km between the terminal Kavi Subhas station till Hemanta Mukherjee station at the Ruby crossing so that the section can be commissioned around the beginning of 2022.