Work on East-West Metro in Kolkata to resume soon

Work on the East-West metro project for constructing the ventilation shaft at Subodh Mallick Square will start once the Kolkata Municipal Corporation vacates its staff quarters. There are 20 staff quarters at the place and these have to be vacated. Once that is done, KMC will begin to dismantle the structures and will make way for the construction of the ventilation shaft to start.
The first phase of the East-West project that will connect Salt Lake with Sealdah is expected to start operations from December 2017.
This has been reported in thestatesman.com dated 9 November 2016.

The second phase of the East-West Metro Project would be from Sealdah to Howrah Maidan. In this stage, the Metro would ply underwater and work on this phase is expected to be completed by August 2019. As per plans, 14 airconditioned rakes would ply on this route with a carrying capacity of 2,136 passengers.
However, problems regarding removal of encroachment, acquisition of land, relocation of hutments etcetera continue to remain.


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Kanchanjunga Express train between Agartala and Kolkata to start - 1,556 km journey in 38 hours

At long last, the much-awaited passenger train service between Agartala and Kolkata is set to take off and it will cover the 1,556-Km journey in 38 hours. It had been a decades-old demand of people from the Northeastern state of Tripura which will now be fulfilled.
This has been reported in thestatesman.com dated 6 October 2016.

The service will be operated by Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) and the train, Kanchanjunga Express, would run between Agartala and Sealdah (Kolkata) via Silchar and Guwahati in Assam twice a week. Its schedule is - it would leave from Agartala for Sealdah via Guwahati and Silchar on Tuesdays and Saturdays while it would depart from Sealdah for Agartala on Sundays and Thursdays.
The train will have halts at around 35 important stations en-route including Silchar, Guwahati, New Bongaigaon, New Coochbehar, New Jalpaiguri, Malda Town, Bolpur Shantiniketan and New Alipurduar and the total journey time for the 1,556 km journey will be 38 hours. By virtue of the train, the connectivity between Tripura and Kolkata will improve and bring much relief to the Bengali population in the state.


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Kolkata hit by sudden storm with wind speeds of 70 km/hour - leaves three dead and six injured

Kolkata was hit by a sudden storm with wind speeds of 70 km/hour that has left three dead and six injured. The storm was accompanied by rain and it took its toll on not just the city but the coastal areas of the state also. Of the tree persons killed, two were in Jadavpur in southern part of the city and one at Beliaghata in northern part of the metropolis.
This has been reported in thestatesman.com dated 18 August 2016.

The three deaths are due to uprooted trees and at least six other persons were injured in different localities in the storm. The condition of one of them was critical. There was heavy traffic snarls at different parts of the city due to water logging. It caused problems for home bound commuters.
Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee informed that the municipal corporation has deployed 22 teams to clear the uprooted trees from the roads. Moreover, due to snapping of overhead wires, train services in Sealdah section were disrupted for hours.

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Howrah and Sealdah stations are in the bottom 10 list of clean stations

Howrah and Sealdah stations in Kolkata are among the country's largest and busiest railway stations and have been ranked in the bottom 10 out of 32 used by more than 50,000 passengers daily. CST Mumbai and Chennai Central, which are in the same category, have been ranked in the top 10.
Nearly 8.5 lakh people use Howrah station each day while Sealdah handles about 12 lakh and, in comparison, CST Mumbai receives more than 15 lakh passengers every day and yet stays much cleaner.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 28 July 2016.

Howrah and Sealdah have been ranked "average" in a survey on cleanliness conducted by the railways across 407 stations. Out of the 407 stations surveyed, Howrah ranks 275, Sealdah is 346 and Kolkata station 131. CST Mumbai, which receives more footfall than Sealdah and Howrah, has been ranked 129 while Chennai Central stands eight notches higher at 121.
It has been revealed that both Howrah and Sealdah stations have dirty washrooms and the platforms are often littered with trash. Moreover, parcels of fish are ferried through the new terminal at Howrah station and water seeping out of them makes the platforms filthy. Also, scores of hawkers selling vegetables squat inside the subway that lead to the bus terminus from the old terminal - as a result, the area is dirtied.
Same for Sealdah - here also, much of the fish and vegetables arriving at the markets come through this station. The parameters used for the survey were cleanliness of ticketed areas, non-ticketed areas, toilets and waste management and the survey was commissioned by the Railway Board and conducted by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) along with a private agency.


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