Kolkata: India’s First Underwater Metro Tunnel to be Ready in 2023!
India’s first underwater tunnel for metro connectivity in between Howrah and Kolkata is underway and will be fully functional by 2023.
The Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRCL) is in charge of making the Kolkata East-West Metro Line.
The metro will connect Howrah and Kolkata. The entire line will be 16.6-km-long. A very interesting fact about this is that 520 metres will be 33 metres under the Hooghly river. This is India’s first underwater tunnel! Almost 80% of the work is done and the metro will be fully functional by 2023. Now you may wonder what if something happens to the train and it gets stuck under the river, what will happen to the passengers. Well, do not worry. There will be passengers in the tunnels for the evacuation of passengers in case of emergency. The Indian government had cleared the metro project in 2006-07, and the project cost was Rs 4,874 crores then. Sophisticated tunnel boring machines from Switzerland were imported to construct the project. Earlier, the expected deadline for the project was August 2012, which was initially postponed to 2015, and then further pushed to 2019. However, the project expenditure increased to Rs 8,575 crores, and the project
Finally, the project will be completed in 2023. There is a Channel Tunnel that connects France & the United Kingdom. It is the longest undersea tunnel in the world: There are trains in the tunnel and you can also drive in the tunnel. It is 38km below the sea. It is actually composed of three tunnels, each 50km long. Now India will also have its own underwater metro tunnel.
