Work starts on Metro piers to bridge 125m gap at Metropolitan crossing

Metro work has finally started at the EM Bypass Metropolitan Junction. The four pillars of the New Garia-Airport Metro Corridor will come up to fill the gap of the viaduct on the stretch. It will take three months to fill the 125m gap on the viaduct, railway officials said.

The shortened 5.4 km crossing from New Garia to Ruby Corridor, also called the Orange Line, is ready for launch. But the rest of the metro route is full of ground obstacles. The one at the Metropolitan crossing is one of the three major hurdles for the 32 km long metro corridor which, when completed, will connect New Garia (in the southern suburbs) and the airport via the EM bypass.

Last week, the Kolkata Police gave permission to Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), the railway subsidiary that executes most of the city's metro projects, to start construction of two of the four pillars that will be needed to fill the 125m (approx) gap in the tunnel. viaduct (on which the subway tracks will be laid).

RVNL has now started the pilot work of erecting two portal pillars (numbers 288 and 289) and barricaded an area of ​​40m x 8m in the middle of the EM bypass. In a fortnight, the blockade will be extended further along the central road to facilitate the construction of two more piers (286 and 287). And then the traffic will be diverted through the wing that RVNL has built on the west side of the EM bypass, in front of the restaurant. The flow of traffic is not affected for the time being.