East West Metro suffers cost escalation due to delay in project

The cost of the East-West metro project connecting Howrah to Salt Lake has escalated manifold due to the delay caused by residents in Dattabad who were unwilling to move from the area. Union Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo said that while the original cost of the project was estimated to be Rs 4,875 crore when it was commissioned in 2008, the government will have to shell out 1.7 times more than that now.

"Naturally the delay has escalated the cost of the project, according to calculations now it is 1.7 times more, it can increase going forward," he said. According to him, the realignment process would itself cost more than Rs 750 crore. But he was hopeful that with the issue now resolved and work restarting, the project will be completed by December 2017.

"While the estimated timeframe was around June 2018, we intend to complete it by December of next year itself, " he said. He added that The families have been relocated and due compensation has been given to all the 60 families who were effected by the project.

Incidentally, KMRCL, initially a joint venture between the Union urban development ministry and the West Bengal government, is developing the East West metro project that will connect Salt Lake to Howrah. Later in 2013, following a request from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, state's stake in the project was handed over to Indian Railways, which runs the existing metro services in Kolkata. Japanese Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC), which is funding 45 per cent of project cost of the budgeted Rs 4,875 crore for the East-West Metro.

The unwilling residents backed by local Trinamool Congress, came into the way of the project. After making several unsuccessful efforts, recently Babul Supriyo, the junior Union minister for urban development, raised the matter with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, which finally paved the way for reviving the project.