Howrah Maidan to Salt Lake Sector 5 East-West Metro corridor in Kolkata hinges on final clearance from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), following a long-drawn delay caused by complex engineering challenges below the city’s dense urban sprawl.
The 16.6 km East-West Metro line, engineered to connect Kolkata’s historic heart with its thriving IT hub, remains partially operational. While the Salt Lake Sector 5 to Sealdah and Howrah Maidan to Esplanade segments are functional, the final 2.6 km stretch between Esplanade and Sealdah remains closed. This unfinished link holds the key to transforming the entire corridor into a seamless, time-saving transit solution for lakhs of commuters. The bottleneck arose from repeated soil subsidence incidents during tunnelling beneath Bowbazar, triggered by water ingress after a tunnel boring machine struck an underground aquifer. Cracks in nearby residential buildings forced multiple pauses in construction, extending the timeline far beyond original projections. With civil and safety works now nearly complete, the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS), Sumeet Singhal, granted operational clearance on April 28. The East-West Metro’s implementing agency, Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), now awaits the formal green light from the PMO. Officials close to the development say trains could run across the full stretch within two months of receiving the nod.
This stretch is particularly vital, not just for its engineering feats—such as India’s first under-river metro tunnel beneath the Hooghly—but for the human and economic benefits it promises. Once operational, it will enable high-speed underground travel between the twin cities of Howrah and Kolkata, dramatically reducing commute times and curbing the over-reliance on personal vehicles and polluting road traffic. Kolkata’s East-West Metro is widely regarded as a case study in balancing infrastructure ambition with ground realities. Despite technological marvels and global engineering support, the project has been repeatedly tested by the city’s fragile geotechnical environment, including densely packed heritage zones. The final hurdle now lies in procedural clearance. While coordination with Kolkata’s fire department is underway to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC), officials insist this is part of standard protocol. Both KMRC and Metro Railway Kolkata remain on standby to operationalise the full line, with the final date resting in the hands of central authorities.
The East-West Metro holds promise not just as a transport corridor but as a step forward in shaping Kolkata into a more sustainable, equitable, and carbon-efficient city. The city’s long commute times, strained surface infrastructure, and worsening air quality underscore the need for high-capacity underground transit. For a city that balances heritage with aspiration, this metro link is not just a matter of convenience—it is symbolic of a future more attuned to its people and the planet.
