India's First Under-River Metro Tunnel: PM Modi To Inaugurate Kolkata’s Underwater Metro Service On 6 March

On 6 March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the 4.8-km-long section of the Kolkata Metro from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade, also featuring India’s first under-river metro tunnel.

The Prime Minister will also inaugurate the Kavi Subhash-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay and Taratala-Majerhat sections of the Kolkata metro on the same day, reports Mint.

The under-river tunnel is built beneath the Hooghly River to link the Kolkata Metro's East-West Metro corridor, stretching 16.6 km to connect Howrah Maidan to Sector V, with a total project cost of Rs 8,600 crore.

The underground section of the corridor spans 10.8 km, including the vital 520-m underwater tunnel, and was executed by the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation.

The commuters will move quickly through the water, covering the 520 m in less than a minute.

Looking at the full journey of this stretch, trains will zoom through the river tunnels at speeds of 80 km/h, making the trip from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade in just 6 minutes.

In 2017, the tunnelling project under the Hooghly River bed was successfully finished by construction major, Afcons Infrastructure. The underwater section consists of twin tunnels made of 1.4-m-wide concrete rings. The tunnels include hydrophilic gaskets to further prevent water from getting inside.

The trains will operate 26 m below ground level at the tunnel's bottom, which is 36 m from the water's surface. Remarkably, the Howrah Metro station is poised to become the deepest metro station in India.