Extra exits not possible at two stations in Kolkata

KOLKATA: It may not be possible to build two extra emergency exits — one each at Bengal Chemical and Salt Lake stadium stations — as recommended by the fire services department. Once again, encroachers’ resistance has come from the same slum that had held up the Rs 8,575-crore Metro project a decade ago. It had taken East-West Metro five years to break the Duttabad jinx and build the 365-metre overhead stretch after the state government relocated them.
On June 7, TOI had reported that the state fire services department had recommended additional exits before giving its clearance for the 5km stretch due for a commercial run next month.
Last month, the fire services department had conducted an inspection of the overhead Sector V-Salt Lake Stadium viaduct and asked for the extra fire exits at two stations. Thereafter, officials of Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), which is executing the 16km stretch between Salt Lake’s Sector V and Howrah Maidan, and Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), the custodian of EM Bypass, conducted a joint survey of the spots where the fire department wanted the new stairs.
During inspection, KMDA officials found that the slum-dwellers were not willing to be relocated to felicitate construction of the proposed emergency exits. “The matter has been communicated to the fire department. We hope the authorities will understand and issue the mandatory fire safety clearance without insisting on the extra exits, especially when the elevated stretch is about to be commissioned,” a KMDA official said.
The Duttabad slum is positioned on the east of EM Bypass and the two proposed exit routes were planned on the same side, according to the original design of the two stations. The staircases were done away with and the plan was revised, considering the mood of the Duttabad dwellers. KMRC then went back to the US-based National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the fire safety manual for such international rapid transit projects, and found that the number of exits must be calculated according to the projected load on the premises and the evacuation time of four minutes. Both the stations have two stairs and an escalator each. Bengal Chemical has another to exit straight to Mani Square, but that’s for private use.
A fire department official said, “We have been insisting on two extra exits because they were there in the original plan. However, when there are land issues, and the state government, too, is helpless, we must go by the number of existing exit points.”