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Kolkata Metro. (Photo: Wikipedia)
The Purple Line will eventually stretch 14km from Joka to Esplanade. Currently, it’s operational over an elevated 8km from Joka to Majerhat.
Construction of the new Park Street Metro station on the Purple line has officially begun with the casting of the diaphragm wall, announced Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL).
According to TOI, Railway officials stated that Kolkata can expect its second Metro station at Park Street within the next two to three years. The Purple line, designed to span 14 kilometers from Joka to Esplanade, is already operational over an 8-kilometer elevated stretch from Joka to Majerhat.
The underground construction for the remaining 5 kilometers commenced last year, starting with the Victoria Metro station. While work continues at the Victoria station and the tunnel-boring machine (TBM) launch site inside St. Thomas’ Boys School, RVNL has now initiated the Park Street station construction. This new station will connect with the existing North-South corridor (Blue line) station.
“Construction for the Purple line’s Park Street station has started with the casting of the diaphragm wall, which required extensive excavation. The diaphragm wall isolates the construction from surrounding soil and groundwater,” explained a railway engineer, as quoted by TOI.
The station will be 325 meters long and 24 meters wide. The last 500 meters of the Joka-Esplanade Metro, or Line 3, will use the cut-and-cover method because a crossover for changing tracks will be built at Esplanade. The Park Street station is also being built this way, making this the effective start of the final construction phase.
RVNL will transplant 184 trees that will be removed from Maidan opposite the current Park Street Metro station. The forest department has approved this plan, and 55 trees have already been moved to Kamardanga near Beliaghata. The diaphragm wall casting is taking place at the former site of the Kolkata Police Club, which has been relocated to a nearby container provided by L&T, the contractor for the Rs 2,447 crore underground Mominpore-Esplanade section.
The existing Park Street station, one of the 26 stations on Kolkata’s North-South Line 1, opened in 1984 when India’s first underground Metro became operational from Esplanade to Bhowanipur (now Netaji Bhavan).
