The initial project cost was Rs 4,874 crore 14 years ago. Repeated time overruns and construction costs had almost doubled the figures to Rs 8,576 crore. And now, there is a Rs 2,000-crore jump, for which KMRC cited deferred deadlines and the pandemic in its letter to Railway Board.
The Railway Board will forward it to the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA), which is primarily funding the project.
If the Centre approves the latest cost revision, Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), which is lending 48% of the total cost of the 10km underground section, will also be intimated about it.
The 16km East-West Metro – which is running on the 9.2km from Sector V to Sealdah – is mired in uncertainties over its final phase of linking Sector V (in the east) with Howrah Maidan (in the west) through the river Hooghly.
The 2.4km Sealdah-Esplanade segment has suffered three subsidence-related disasters, the latest one on October 14, in which 180 residents from 12 houses had to be evacuated.
“The revised cost of Rs 10,442 crore was sent before the October 14 accident, citing delays because of construction hurdles and Covid,” a senior KMRC official told TOI, clarifying that the latest construction fiasco is unrelated to this revised cost and the damages would be taken care of by the insurance company and the contractors.
The beleaguered project had received a major boost in October 2020 when the Union cabinet, after a five-year wait, approved to complete the Metro link for Rs 8,576 crore in December 2021.
The project seemed to have recovered well from the August 2019 setback when the tunnel borer, while digging one of the twin tunnels, had hit an aquifer, causing a large-scale subsidence and house collapses at Bowbazar.
A subsidence rerun on May 11, this year pushed the deadline to June 2023 for the full 16km run to Howrah Maidan.
After the third subsidence on October 11, KMRC told Railway Board chairman V K Tripathy in a video conference on October 22 that the deadline now stood at October 2023 or beyond.
The Rs 8,576-crore cost revision was sent to the Centre in December 2015, with route realignment, increase in wages and prices of steel and iron as the factors.
In 2008, KMRC had pegged that Rs 4,874 crore would be required to build the Metro rail system between Howrah Maidan and Salt Lake Sector V.