Kolkata: Urvi gets HC nod to move 5m; NGO plea for digging only under main road

KOLKATA: Calcutta High Court on Monday allowed KMRC to move the unaffected tunnel boring machine (TBM), lying idle in Bowbazar, 5m for maintenance. Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency of East-West Metro, had on November 8 appealed to the court to allow a 5m shift for TBM Urvi.
The court had asked KMRC to have the plea validated by experts. Last Friday, a report by KMRC’s committee of international experts was presented in court and on Monday, the court said it was satisfied with it.
_{The court had asked KMRC to have the plea validated by experts. Last Friday, a report by KMRC’s committee of international experts was presented in court and on Monday, the court said it was satisfied with it.}
Urvi has been stuck 14m under Nirmal Chandra Street since its twin Chundee hit an aquifer on August 31. Chundee has been defunct since. Urvi, stuck 400m behind, will now dig 1.2km till Sealdah to complete its own tunnel and take a U-turns to burrow the remaining 750m of the affected tunnel towards Bowbazar.
A division bench of Calcutta HC, headed by Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan, is hearing a PIL filed by the NGO Paribesh Academy seeking the court’s intervention to ensure safety measures are taken before tunnelling resumes. The petitioners on Monday asked the court to consider their plea on changing the TBM’s alignment so the machine can only dig along the main road. The court told the petitioners the matter would be discussed during the next hearing on December 16.
According to the experts’ report, the TBM will be operated by staff from the machine’s German manufacturers Herrenknecht, under the supervision and monitoring of KMRC’s international consultants General Consultants. The committee — Hong Kong-based geotechnical expert John Endicott, TBM expert David Christopher Bridges, geotechnical expert Neelakantan Pitchumani from Chennai and city-based structural expert Suman Dutta — will also monitor the operations.