Calcutta HC clears Maidan metro tunnel after Army nod – Times of India

KOLKATA: The much-awaited green light has come for the Joka-Esplanade Metro corridor with the Army on Friday informing a Calcutta High Court division bench that it has no objection to tracks being laid below Maidan and underground tunnelling through its land.
The 14.4km corridor – or Kolkata’s Line 3 – is elevated from Joka to Mominpur. The 5.6km Mominpore-Esplanade section is underground. The project, approved in 2010, could only be executed till Mominpore since the Army is the custodian of most of the 5km underground stretch that will pass through the Maidan.

It has been the main problem spot for the project, stalling it for so long and making the corridor miss several deadlines since 2016.
Representatives from the Army’s Bengal area headquarters and Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), tasked to implement most of the city’s Metro corridors, including the Joka-Esplanade Metro, have been attending meetings convened by Y J Dastoor, additional solicitor general for Calcutta high court, so that the issue could finally be resolved.
“Since the project is in public interest and has the ministry of defence’s approval, a consensus has been reached to start drilling through the Army land. But the Army has told RVNL that before entering the vicinity of Victoria Memorial and the Maidan, all formalities with the state government must be fulfilled. For instance, approvals must be secured from Kolkata Police and other agencies for shifting some Maidan tent clubs and Bidhan Market,” Swapan Banerjee, counsel who appeared on behalf of RVNL before the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj, told TOI. “Minutes of the meetings were submitted before the court today. On learning about Army’s go-ahead, the court disposed of the matter,” Banerjee added.
The high court matter relates to a 2005 PIL by Rudra Jyoti Bhattacharya, following which certain restrictions – like no construction within 100m of Victoria Memorial – came into force. RVNL prayed to the court that the construction activity was well beyond 200m of Victoria’s boundary and restrictions may be eased for the sake of the Metro corridor.
Five stations, Mominpore, Kidderpore, Victoria Memorial, Park Street and Esplanade, will come up along this stretch. The site chosen for the proposed Victoria Memorial station is off Queensway while that for the Park Street station is adjacent to the existing station on the North-South Metro route. The Esplanade station would be near Shahid Minar, for which Bidhan Market needs to be relocated. Last December, with Army’s permission, RVNL conducted soil tests along the Maidan stretch.
The ministry of defence had given its nod way back 2015, after a four-year stalemate, but RVNL was required to obtain clearances from Calcutta high court. PM Narendra Modi had to intervene to have the defence ministry give the nod for the 5km underground stretch.