E-W Metro project in troubled water

“We will be go for an appeal,and I am optimistic about the colossal project. I am unable to give a timeframe but I am sure it will be back on tracks soon,” said H K Sharma,Director (Project and Planning),Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC).

Transport Secretary BP Gopalika,who has joined as the new managing director the KMRC,on the other hand,said he would take some time to settle down before he can decide on what would be their next plan of action.

Sources in the KMRC said the project’s funding agency,Japanese Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC),had already threatened to pull out if there was a realignment of the route proposed by the transport department.

With the latest court’s order,the bank has become further sceptical about the viability of the project. The JBIC is lending about Rs 2,300 crore of the total Rs 5000 crore project cost.

“There will be an inevitable delay in the project resulting in escalating costs,” said a senior KMRC official. The official,however,added that given the present land acquisition issue,the re-routing of the project would be the next step.

‘Govt acquired land invoking colonial law to avoid market rate compensation’

Members of Central Calcutta Citizens Welfare Association,who had challenged the land acquisition of the plots at BB Ganguly Street,said there were several defects in the government’s land acquisition procedure. “The land was acquired under Lord Dalhousie’s Act of 1894 and not of the new Act of 1977. That is because under the British Act the compensation can be very low but according to the 1977 Act,it has to be the market value,” said J P Singhi,general secretary of the association. Singhi said irrespective of the floor area the shops covered,the owners were awarded a flat compensation.