Bengal: Metro Railway blames leakage in KMC sewerage line for inundation of tracks

Kolkata: Metro Railway has blamed Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) for the leak in the sewerage line over the disruption of services along the busiest Blue Line (between the Kavi Subhash and Dakshineswar stations) for nearly five hours on Monday.

Thousands of office-goers had to face inconvenience after services between the Girish Park and Mahanayak Uttam Kumar stations stopped.

Cyclonic storm Remal has led to severe waterlogging and disruption of traffic on Kolkata streets since Sunday and people relied on the Metro to reach their places of work on Monday.

Kausik Mitra, CPRO, Metro Railway, said that the Metro officials traced the leak to a KMC sewerage line.

“The leak was near the top of the subway of the Park Street station. There were leaks near the expansion joint of the pipeline due to which a large volume of water flowed into the station through the diaphragm wall of the Park Street station,” Mitra said.

He said that the water had to be pumped out and corrective measures taken to prevent such an occurrence in the future.

“We couldn't take a risk as passenger safety was concerned and stopped services between Girish Park and Mahanayak Uttam Kumar. Services were available between Dakshineswar and Girish Park and Kavi Subhash and Mahanayak Uttam Kumar. Our engineers started work on a war footing and pumped out the water from the tracks as well as the rest of the station premises,” said Kausik Mitra, CPRO, Metro Railway.

He said that they were able to resume services between the Kavi Subhash and Maidan stations at 10.20 am.

“Our efforts continued and uninterrupted services between the Kavi Subhash and Dakshineswar stations resumed at 12.05 pm,” Kausik Mitra said.