Union Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo today said he was hopeful that the East-West Metro Project till Sealdah will be operational from December 2017.
"We had earlier set a date of June 2018 for the East-West Metro project to be functional. Going by the current progress of work, we think by December 2017 we will be able to start train services at least till Sealdah," Supriyo said.
He said by first week of April, the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) would start working for the tunnel under river Hooghly for the project.
"We are hopeful that the entire unit of the TBM will start digging the tunnel under Hooghly," he said.
The tunnel, 520 m wide, would be at a depth around 13 m from the river bed, the Minister said adding, there was no financial crisis regarding the project.
A new TBM machine today started working at the Howrah Maiden, he stated.
Meanwhile, the Bangalore-based PSU, BEML Limited, was awarded the contract to manufacture rakes for the East-West Metro, Supriyo said.
"The company will build 14 rakes for the project in 20 months and we will get them by September 2017... This will give us the time for test-run," Supriyo added.
