East-West Metro ready with structure of country’s second deepest Metro station at Esplanade

KOLKATA: East-West Metro’s 28m-deep Esplanade station is now structurally complete. This is Kolkata’s most important Metro station, because it will be a connecting point for the three Metro lines; the existing north-south link, and the under-construction East-West and the Joka-Esplanade corridors.
The 16km East-West Metro, when fully operational, will link Sector-V with Howrah Maidan, travelling below the Hooghly.The huge 30,000sqm Esplanade station is India’s second deepest Metro station. The deepest is the 30m station below Howrah railway station. Esplanade station is at par with Delhi’s Hauz Khas Metro station, also built 28m below the surface.
Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) is implementing the Rs 8,575crore project. A truncated 7km stretch between Sector-V and Phoolbagan is now operational. Even as East-West Metro’s Sealdah station may be commissioned next August, Esplanade station will be functional only when the 6.5km Howrah Maidan-Sealdah section is ready.
Structural work completed, block work (partitioning the various system rooms, ticket counters and so on) has started at the Esplanade station. It was from here that ITD ITD-Cementation, building the last 2.45km underground tunnels of the Metro corridor between Esplanade and Sealdah, had launched the two tunnel borers back in January, 2019. The tunneling was supposed to have been completed in March, this year, but one of the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) hit an aquifer on August 31, last year, and pushed back the project, that has missed multiple deadlines.
Another 800m of tunneling, due to begin in December-end, is still left. “Until the tunneling is over, two 10m-by-10m openings in the Metro station can’t be covered up. These serve as shafts for the TBM,” a KMRC official said. Meanwhile, finishing work for the completed portions of the station will be done. “But things like air-conditioning and other finishing work can’t be until the entire station box is covered,” the KMRC official said.
The station was dug so deep so that the twin tunnels, passing through SN Banerjee Road towards Sealdah, could steer clear of the north-south Metro’s tracks. The “interchange” East-West Metro’s Esplanade station has been linked with the existing north-south corridor through a subway. The station has four tiers, aligns with the north-south corridor on the mezzanine level. Ticket counters will come up on this level since it’s the first space commuters will access.
Then comes “upper concourse”, the space reserved for a commercial complex, followed by the “lower concourse”. The entire floor will be used for MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) installations, which include air-conditioners, transformers, generators, power cables. Finally, there’s the fourth, or platform level. This has double discharge platforms leading to twin tunnels. During construction, pre-cast panels were used to form the various levels and internal structures, similar to the construction of underground basements of highrise buildings.