Kolkata Metro expansion: Smallest of 3 new links to act as biggest game changer for city’s commute; East-West line to finally run end-to-end | Kolkata News

KOLKATA: Commuters may be able to ride the entire 16.6 km stretch from Sector V to Howrah Maidan immediately after the Prime Minister flags off its last 2.6 km leg — the Esplanade-Sealdah section — on Friday, sources said. The other two routes are likely to be operational from Monday, they added.In the recent past, whenever a new metro line was flagged off by a VVIP (the railway minister or the Prime Minister), revenue operations started at least 24 hours later. “This time, soon after the East-West Metro section is flagged off, passenger services along the section, which will now span across 12 stations dotting the Sector V-Howrah Maidan corridor, will take off,” an official said. When East-West Metro’s phase I was commissioned in 2020, Piyush Goyal, the then railways minister, flagged off the 5km truncated Sector V-Salt Lake Stadium on Feb 14. Revenue services began the next day, marking Salt Lake’s entry into the city’s metro map.Four years later, PM Modi launched East-West Metro’s under-river section from Esplanade to Howrah Maidan on March 6, 2024. Commercial services of the stretch started on March 15, with thousands of passengers erupting into jubilation, as Kolkata and its twin, Howrah, were joined by the metro.

While East-West Metro will begin its full run immediately this time, commercial operations of the other two new routes are likely to start 48 hours later, from Monday, sources said. When railway board chairman Satish Kumar came to the city last Monday to review the preparedness of the three new lines, he was told by East-West Metro’s implementing agency Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) that the 2.6 km Sealdah-Esplanade section was ready for run “any day, any time”. That was when Metro Railway, which supervises the city’s rapid transit network, decided that the section should go live immediately afterwards. “This would be a small way of thanking the people of Kolkata for holding on during the worst setbacks this section suffered since Aug 31, 2019,” a Metro official said.East-West Metro now functions in two disjointed routes — the 9.2 km Sector V-Sealdah and the 4.8 km Esplanade-Howrah Maidan via Hooghly. The two stretches are respectively referred to as Green Line I and Green Line II. “From Friday itself, East-West Metro will become the Green Line — in its entirety — instead of being split in two isolated sections,” an official said.The other two new routes — the 7 km Noapara-Airport, which happens to be the Yellow Line’s Phase I, and the 4.4 km Ruby-Metropolitan (Beleghata station)—cannot be opened immediately on Friday because the former still needs some finishing touches and the latter doesn’t run on weekends, officials said. They stated that preparedness must be foolproof for the Yellow Line’s inauguration. “After all, the city will be getting its first airport-metro connectivity.“