Spanish firm pulls out of the East-West Metro in Kolkata

Considering the fact that the Kolkata underground metro rail has proved its usefulness in the overcrowded city many times over, a decision had been taken to have an East-West Metro to provide more connections to the population of the city that is bursting at the seams.
However, this project continues to run into bad weather and no one can predict when it will actually take off.
The latest hitch is about the rail coaches meant for the trains. A Spanish company had bid for and won the contract to build trains for the East-West Metro but, as per reports, it is out of the project after its cost-escalation claim was turned down.
The firm is Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) and it is the third company associated with the East-West Metro to cite cost escalation caused by procedural delays. The Madrid-based company was to manufacture 14 air-conditioned trains, each with a top speed of 90-Kmph and comprising six coaches with a combined capacity of 2,136 passengers.
The Spanish firm had won the contract in 2009 and was to have manufactured the first of the 14 trains in Spain and the rest in India.
Incidentally, at present, all the Metro's Railway's air-conditioned trains are manufactured by the Integral Coach Factory at Perambur in Chennai – their average speed is hardly 50-Kmph. Moreover, they have eight coaches each. Obviously, the Spanish venture would have been the best bet but, it does not appear to be slated to run on the roads of Kolkata.
The East-West metro project of Kolkata - It was in 2008 that the order for the 14.06-km long East-West Metro Corridor project was issued. The East-West Metro Corridor stretches from Howrah Maidan in west to Salt Lake (Sector V) on the eastern fringes of Kolkata.
The work has to be completed in two parts: approximately 9-km stretch from Howrah Maidan to Duttabad in Salt Lake and five-km stretch between Sector V area of Salt Lake and Sector I on the eastern fringe of Kolkata. But, the problem is regarding a small section of the road that the authorities have not been able to take over due to squatting of slum dwellers.
The squatters apparently have the blessings of local political leaders and, hence, the continuity of work has been affected resulting in cost overruns.