Metro work stops at Phoolbagan again

KOLKATA: Work at East-West Metro’s Phoolbagan station site was stopped again on Friday, a little over two weeks after it restarted, with no building material being supplied for the past week. On June 29, two rival groups of local suppliers had clashed at the same place, stalling construction for a few days. Road restoration at Phoolbagan crossing, too, has been hit because local suppliers are not being allowed to overload their trucks with construction material, as part of the state administration’s stringent actions to prevent accidents.

Usually, lorries carrying sand, stone-chips and other construction material would be filled to thrice their capacity. A senior police officer revealed that it is a common practice among local suppliers, especially those run by syndicates, to carry excess material in carriers to lower the frequency of trips so as to cut down on the travel cost.
Syndicate “issues” are common at the Phoolbagan site, which, when completed, will connect Sector V and Howrah Maidan. But construction work coming to a complete halt is a recent feature, he added.
“Our suppliers from quarries in areas like Nalhati and Rampurhat, around 250km from Kolkata, have been used to this sort of overloading of their lorries. However, the current police and transport department crackdown has trebled their transportation cost over the last week. As a result, they have stopped sending supplies altogether,” said an official of ITD-ITD Cementation, the company contracted to build the Sector V-Sealdah leg of East-West Metro.
“What do we complain against this time? There are several agencies from the quarries in the districts that supply material to pave the road. They are pleading helplessness against the sudden rise in transportation cost,” said an engineer working at the Phoolbagan site.
“We have received no official complaint, but were told that work on the road has been put on hold due to the rains,” said Debosmita Das, DC, ESD. Since 2012, traffic has not been allowed to ply on the east-west flank of the Phoolbagan crossing because of the underground station construction. Now that the station is almost complete, the road above is being done up, with the traffic police desperately seeking to open the stretch and KMRC promising to hand over the road by August.
“Phoolbagan is a vital crossing because of the heavy traffic flow from Ultadanga, Beliaghata, EM Bypass and Rajabazar. The police have been pressuring us to give up the stretch. We, too, want to make use of the dry spell this monsoon to finish the work. But now the deadline has gone for a toss,” rued an ITD official.