The East West Metro rail corridor, one of the biggest projects of the West Bengal government, will induce a 20-22 per cent price escalation in real estate properties across the city, albeit in pockets.
Leading realtors in the city told Business Standard that once the project is completed, property prices should increase by at least 20-22 per cent in areas like Howrah Maidan, 20 minutes from the Howrah Station, where property prices are yet to appreciate much.
"Once the East West metro project is executed, the property prices should rise by at least 20-22 per cent in places encompassing the route. Yet, we have to take the project with a pinch of salt, given the experience with the extension of Garia Metro rail project," said Pradeep Chopra of PS Group.
However, real estate developers are sceptical about the project, given that the proposed Tollygunge-New Garia Metro connectivity is yet to see the light of day, after the 8.5 kilometer stretch project was sanctioned in 2000. More so, as the developers felt that the proposed East-West corridor covers mostly congested areas like Sealdah, Dalhousie, Phoolbagan in Central and North Kolkata, with hardly any scope for real estate development. Also, developers are apprehensive about the completion of the project on time.
Already, the Bowbazar Metro station that featured in the original route map of the East-West Metro corridor has been dropped following protests from the local tenants. "After the state government approached us last year with the proposal to drop the Bowbazar station, the issue was taken up by the empowered group of ministers and now a decision has been taken to drop the station," confirmed M Ramachandran, chairman of the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation(KMRC), a special purpose vechicle floated to develop the corridor. He, however, added that the SPV had not faced any other major land acquisition hurdle so far.
The Rs 4,874.58 crore East-West Metro corridor project, the first transportation project in the country running under a major river, will cover the 13.77 kilometer(km) from Salt Lake Sector V, the IT hub of the city, up to Howrah Maidan.
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Of this, around 8 km is underground with six stations and the balance 5.77 km will be on an elevated track. There will be 12 stations in all that would connect the city's central business district(CBD), Dalhousie, with a station near the secretariat(Writers' Building) with the extreme eastern and western fringes, according to the blue print.
"Any major infrastructure project, results in price appreciation in land and property prices. However, government projects take much longer time than proposed. One could asses the impact of the project on property prices only when the project is near completion. " said Pradeep Sureka of the Sureka Group.
The 8.5 kilometer(km) long Garia-Tollygunge metro connection is yet to start operating after nine long years after its commencement. "There have been issues with land acquisition, and the project cost originally estimated to around Rs 907 crore has also escalated," said a Metro Railway spokesperson. He did not want to divulge further details on the increased project costs.
Similarly, the East-West corridor project came under resistance from tenants and shop owners in the Bowbazar area who refused to relocate to Rajarhat, a satellite township near Salt Lake. Close to 300 shops are expected to be affected by the project.
Net land requirement for the metro corridor is around 22.6 Hectares(ha), of which 21.52 ha is government land and the remaining 1.08 ha is private land. "The number of project-affected persons is 432, and a rehabilitation plan has already been finalised for them," Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of West Bengal had said at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the project. "At present, the project is not attracting any developers. Once the project starts there might be some impact on real estate prices," said a property consultant. Work on the East-West corridor has, however started. The KMRC has already started issuing work orders and tenders.Tender for the six km elevated corridor at Salt Lake was awarded to Gammon India Ltd on February 20, informed Sumantra Chowdhury, state transport secretary and also the managing director of KMRC. A Hong Kong-based consortium has been appointed as project consultants. KMRC is keen to ready the stretch between Salt Lake to Sealdah by 2012. The deadline for completion of the entire project is October 2014.