Howrah metro station creates history – the deepest metro station in India
Our country, India’s, public transport system has attained a milestone after the Kolkata Metro successfully finished a test run through an underwater tunnel in the east of the City of Joy in April 2023
The Howrah metro’s smooth journey without any obstacles through a tunnel under the Hooghly River has been described as a “historic moment”.
The 520-metre long tunnel which is constructed by Kolkata metro — patterned on Eurostar’s London-Paris corridor — runs under the river from Kolkata’s Esplanade Station to Howrah Maidan Station. According to recent reports, this entire journey will be completed by the trains in a mere time frame of 45 seconds
The tunnel at Howrah Maidan Metro is 33 meters below the surface, making Kolkata Metro the deepest metro station in India.
According to Kausik Mitra, chief public relations officer of Kolkata Metro.“This is a historic moment for the city of Kolkata. It is the deepest station, the first of its kind in India,”
With construction efforts pouring on ongoing Kolkata metro projects in the City of Joy and its suburbs, Kolkata Metro remains the one and only metro system in India to be operated and controlled by Indian Railways. In a significant development, Kolkata Metro’s construction work on the Howrah Metro station is now in full swing, aiming to achieve a historic feat by June 2024.
The Howrah Metro station is set to become India’s deepest metro station, taking Kolkata’s underground transportation to new depths.
Once operational by the next year, the Howrah Metro station will stand as the preliminary and one of the most crucial gateway to the bustling vigorous city of Kolkata, along with the already commissioned Sealdah Metro station.
This is one of the most important parts of the East-West Metro project, which will flawlessly connect the twin cities of Howrah and Kolkata. It is to serve a daily means of travel of approximately 6.7 lakh passengers along its entire corridor.
India’s first underwater metro service is part of Kolkata’s East-West Corridor Project. The East-West Metro Project will link Sector V with Howrah Maidan on the other side of the Hooghly River. It is being built at a cost of Rs 8,600 crore. Although, the entire tunnel consists of four stations, Esplanade, Mahakaran, Howrah, and Howrah Maidan, at present, only 9.1 km of the Metro line from Salt Lake Sector V to Sealdah is functional.
On 2 November, P Uday Kumar Reddy, General Manager of Metro Railway, conducted a thorough inspection of the Howrah Maidan to Esplanade stretch of the East-West Metro Corridor, also known as the Green Line.
Accompanied by VK Srivastava, Principal Chief Engineer of Metro Railway and Managing Director, as well as other senior officials from Metro Railway and KMRCL, he started on this inspection journey from the Howrah Maidan Metro station and traveled beneath the Hooghly River to reach the Esplanade Metro station, all within the boundaries of the metro train.
He also evaluated the progress of various critical components, including the underground sections of Howrah, Howrah Maidan, Esplanade, and Mahakaran Metro stations, traction substations, power supply systems, and the ventilation and air-conditioning infrastructure.
The expansion of Kolkata Metro, with its record-setting depth and seamless connectivity between Howrah and Kolkata, stands as a testament to the city’s commitment to modernizing its public transportation infrastructure.
As the Howrah Metro station prepares to make history, Kolkata’s residents and commuters can look forward to an even more efficient and extensive metro network in the near future.
