KOLKATA: The ground work ahead of soil testing for the much-awaited Joka-Esplanade Metro has started in the Maidan area. This is a milestone for the Metro corridor that has been saddled with several missed deadlines even as it was chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s pet project.
Banerjee had flagged off the project in July 2011 and planned it when she was the railway minister in 2009-10. Finally, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), the implementing agency of the 15km Joka-Esplanade Metro or Kolkata’s Line 3, has started the process of soil testing, after getting a go-ahead from the Army, custodian of the land in and around the Maidan area.
The Metro corridor is elevated from Joka to Mominpore. But a 5.6km stretch from Mominpore till Esplanade will be underground. Five stations — Mominpore, Kidderpore, Victoria Memorial, Park Street and Esplanade — will come up along this stretch.
