Garia-Airport Metro viaduct gap bridged over tracks at Baghajatin

Kolkata: A gap of the New Garia-Airport viaduct over the Baghajatin-Sealdah tracks was bridged on Friday without disturbing the railway services below.

“This was a crucial job as placing the spans with railway services running below is considered complicated, especially with no traffic or signalling block.

It was more so with segmental construction on the suburban section. It was a technical challenge that we overcame,” said an official of RVNL, executing agency of the Metro corridor.

But, according to sources, uncertainty looms on the construction of seven piers (P13 to P18A) after that, owing to pending land acquisition, which had hit a roadblock owing to the Metro Appellate Authority and Competent Authority posts remaining vacant for a long time. “The piers are crucial for timely completion of the Metro alignment from New Garia to Hemanta Mukherjee Station (Ruby), the stretch on which the authorities want to run a truncated service from in early 2021. We have a deadline to meet in December 2020. We need to get these roadblocks cleared,” an official said.

After a gap of six months, the Railway Board finally gave its nod and recently, Yasmin Fatma was appointed as the Appellate Authority and Rudra Prasad Roy as the Competent Authority in Metro Railway LA Court. Now Roy has taken charge, officials hope the process of physical possession of land would be expedited. “He will conduct hearings on compensation at the LA court if there are disputes. This is the final stage of land handover, which mostly involves paperwork,” a Metro official said. Land for Metro is acquired under Section 10 of Metro Act. The last land acquisition notice for the seven piers was issued on July 28, ’15 and it was valid for a year. The paperwork would have to be carried out all over again, another official said.

The absence of the Competent Authority has also stalled the work on two piers near Pragati Maidan police station and four near Dhapa. Unless these piers are constructed immediately, the viaduct on the stretch cannot be completed.