Kolkata Metro Rail News & Updates

Commercial services of India's first underwater metro train started in Kolkata today from 15th March 2024. One train started its journey at 7 am from Howrah Maidan station on Kolkata's East-West Metro corridor to loud cheers and applause from passengers, while the other train started at the same time from Esplanade station.

Commercial services began after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section of the East-West Corridor of the Kolkata Metro on March 6, marking India's first venture into underwater metro services.

Kolkata Metro Rail on Saturday announced that commercial services will start on the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section from March 15. Services on two other lines – New Garia-Ruby and Joka-Majerhat – will also start from the same day. There will be no trains on Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section on Sunday. The first train from both Howrah Maidan and Esplanade will start at 7 am and the last train will start at 9.45 pm.

The New Garia-Ruby section, which is part of the Orange Line (New Garia-Airport), will have no trains on Saturday and Sunday, Kolkata Metro Rail announced. The same schedule will be followed in the Joka-Majerhat section which is part of the Purple Line (Joka-Esplanade). Currently, trains run between Joka and Taratala.

PM Modi will inaugurate the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade metro section, Kavi Subhash Station-Hemant Mukhopadhyay metro section and Taratala-Majerhat metro section of Kolkata Metro. Let us tell you that the underwater metro tunnel will run 32 meters below the level of Hooghly river. This will reduce the commuting time of people.

Kolkata commuters will be able to travel the entire distance from Howrah Maidan to the middle of EM Bypass via Hooghly for just Rs 50. This is the essence of the integrated fare structure proposed by the Metro Railways for the East-West Metro, with an interface with the North-South line at Esplanade in central Kolkata. The North-South corridor, in turn, meets the New Garia-Airport Metro at New Garia.

Major metro projects of Kolkata city have received adequate funds in the interim budget. The New Garia-Airport corridor has received the highest allocation of Rs 1,791.3 crore, followed by the Joka-Esplanade corridor with Rs 1,200 crore. East-West Metro has received Rs 900 crore. The 32 km new Garia-Airport Metro – or Orange Line – has been given a big boost in the interim budget. The 5.4 km long new Garia-Ruby section of the corridor is all set to become operational. Construction work is going on on New Town and VIP Road.

New Garia-Airport Metro Corridor (Via Rajarhat) in Kolkata Metro was increased by 50 percent in the general budget. Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation Limited (KMRCL) is also getting less money. New Garia-Airport Metro Corridor (via Rajarhat): An amount of Rs 1,200 crore was allocated in the 2023-24 budget for construction. Which has been increased to Taka 1,750 crore. And Rs 1,791.39 crore has been allocated in the budget for the financial year 2024-25 for the New Garia-Airport Metro Corridor.

Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation Limited (KMRCL): KMRCL is the agency responsible for the East-West Metro corridor. In this year's budget, Rs 906 crore has been allocated to that institution. Rs 1,000 crore was given in the last budget. However, now it has been revised to Rs 906 crore. That means the allocation has decreased by 9.4 percent from last year's budget.

Esplanade station of East-West Metro of Kolkata Metro is now getting finalized to start the abbreviated Esplanade-Howrah Maidan run. The station, spread over 30,000 square metres, now has a grand look except for the shaft area. The interior, featuring colorful frescoes, paintings and panels, has an "esplanade" as the theme, with depictions of trams. There are 20 escalators and eight lifts to transport passengers from a depth of 28 metres.

This metro station is built just below Howrah station, one of the major railway stations of the country. Officials say that this metro station is 33 meters below the ground. At the same time, if we talk about the deepest station in Asia, it is in Hong Kong which is about 60 meters deep from the ground. The picture of the new metro station has been posted on the social media platform of Kolkata Metro.

The ambitious metro project connecting Kolkata's Salt Lake Sector-5 to Howrah Maidan has been constructed under the East West Metro Project. In the total 14.67 km long East West Metro project, 8.90 km area will be underground while 5.77 km rail line will be elevated. There will be a total of 12 stations, which include Howrah Maidan, Howrah Station, Mahakaran, Esplanade and others.

In November 2023, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) sought permission from the state government to clear and relocate some existing structural utilities such as parts of the skywalk for the proposed extension of the metro viaduct beyond Dakshineswar station. However, CM Mamata Banerjee said that she got this information from a recent news report.

In efforts to provide alternative ticketing facilities, Kolkata Metro Railway today expanded the paper based QR code ticketing system at all operational stations on the East-West Metro corridor. This facility was first introduced at Sealdah station in October. After Sealdah, Central Park, Karunamoyee and Salt Lake Sector V stations, this facility has now been introduced in the remaining four stations of the Green Line, including Phoolbagan, Bengal Chemical, Salt Lake Stadium and City Centre.

Passengers on the New Garia-Ruby Metro line in Kolkata will soon experience more frequent train services, as plans to operate trains at 45-minute intervals have been revised. The Orange line's Phase I, which has been shorten, will now be opened with signals, allowing trains to run at approximately 10-minute frequencies.

According to Kolkata Metro officials, North-South Metro carried around 2,98,116 passengers till 6 pm on Monday. Eastern Railway spokesperson Kaushik Mitra said, "This is 17,753 more than last year's figure of 2,80,363 till 6 pm."

Metro Railways will increase security at Esplanade, Park Street, Maidan, Rabindra Sadan and Dum Dum metro stations on Christmas. Metro RPF will arrange for deployment of additional personnel to control the possible crowd of revelers at these stations as well as ensure hassle-free travel for passengers. Last year, on Chrisartmas, a footfall of 75,826 people was recorded at Esplanade, 68,042 at Park Street and 50,193 at Maidan.

Kolkata Metro Orange Line is likely to open in January 2024. The Kavi Subhash-Hemant Mukhopadhyay section has received the necessary approval from the Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS). The much-awaited Kavi Subhash-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay section of Kolkata Metro Orange Line is in the final stages of operation. The metro system is currently conducting trial runs to ensure uninterrupted functioning of machinery and staff in preparation for the upcoming commissioning.

Kolkata Metro is all set to unveil the much-awaited Kavi Subhash–Hemanta Mukhopadhyay stretch of the Orange Line. Scheduled to be open to the public by January 2024, the new line recently completed five successful round trips.

Good news for Kolkata Metro commuters. Services on the entire stretch of the East-West Metro route are likely to start in June next year. At present, services are running from Salt Lake Sector V to the Sealdah stretch of the East-West Metro route. While passengers coming from suburbs are availing of comfortable Metro services from Sealdah station now, trail runs on this stretch are being conducted regularly.

Ensuring better passenger services, Kolkata Metro has introduced Infotainment on Wheels – an exciting initiative to improve the daily commute of passengers. North-South Metro's North-South Medha Rake now offers engaging infotainment content including popular cartoons on digital displays within metro cars. The aim of this initiative is to make travel more enjoyable.

Metro will run less on Thursday compared to other days. There is a holiday on Thursday on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad. And during those holidays, metro will run in relatively less numbers in Kolkata. But this incident is only for the North-South Corridor of the Metro. Due to Thursday being a holiday on the occasion of Eid-e-Milad, fewer trains will run from Blue Line i.e. Dakshineswar to Kavi Subhash station as compared to other days.

Kolkata Metro Rail authorities have issued a notice for the passengers ahead of the Puja, in which Kolkata Metro Rail will run additional metro on Saturday and Sunday holidays due to the festival season. This special metro service will be available from 23 September (Saturday) to 15 October (Sunday). Metro is calling it 'Pre-Pujo Metro Service'. But this special service will be available only on the Blue Line of Kolkata Metro. That means this additional metro will run from Dakshineswar to Kavi Subhash station.

For the first time in the country, Kolkata Metro is preparing to run its route underwater. The metro rail service is expected to be operational by the end of December 2023. Due to increasing population in India, traffic congestion on the roads is also increasing day by day. Due to this, many changes are taking place in public transport.

On September 9, office-goers, students and thousands of other commuters in south Kolkata faced a lot of trouble as metro rail services were halted for more than three hours on Saturday morning due to a fault in the power supply system. Due to a fault around 8 am, a train bound for Dakshineswar was stopped at Kalighat station. At 8.12 am, power block was taken between Rabindra Sarobar and Jatin Das Park (Kalighat is between the two) stations.

Kolkata Metro is working on designing future rakes, these new AC rakes will be produced at Integral Coach Factory Chennai. A glimpse of Bengal will be seen in these AC rakes. Taking inspiration from the bridal and terracotta artwork here, these will be designed in rake nose cane.

The Kolkata Metro is set to join the elite metro systems of London, Moscow, Berlin, Munich and Istanbul in having an all-aluminium third rail instead of steel rails. In Kolkata Metro, power to the rakes is supplied to the rolling stock at 750V DC through steel third rail. Made of steel and fitted on metro rakes, the Third Rail Current Collector (TRCC) collects power from the third rail – a process that has been in place for the last 40 years.

Kolkata Metro Rail has decided to install automatic platform screen doors at all stations to prevent suicide attempts. Kolkata Metro Rail officials said that automatic platform screen doors will be installed at all metro stations.

Kolkata Metro is set to upgrade its infrastructure with Aluminium Third Rail, with the implementation of a 150-second headway in the North-South corridor, which refers to the operation of trains at intervals of 150 seconds during peak hours.

There is a plan to start metro service from New Garia to Beleghata by the end of this year. In such a situation, the work is going on fast. Metrorail General Manager (GM) P Udaya Kumar Reddy has informed about this, he inspected the entire line on Tuesday. After the tour, he said, "With the help of the state, all the metro works in the city are going on fast." The target of metro operation from New Garia to Beleghata has been set in December 2023. Metro passenger services are planned to start from New Garia to Salt Lake Sector V in June 2024, City Center (II) by December.