The construction of houses in Bowbazar that were damaged beyond repair by the August 2019 East-West Metro tunnel subsidence has been delayed by at least two more months, said officials overseeing the project.

A representation of displaced residents, led by local councillor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Biswarup Dey, met officials of the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency of the East-West Metro corridor, on Wednesday.

They were told that pre-construction work was still underway and building new homes was unlikely to begin before late August or September. The earlier target was May.

“We were told that the soil needed deeper digging before it was strong enough for the new homes,” said Dey, councillor of Ward 48.

The construction of 23 houses has been approved by the KMC.

They were damaged in the subsidence on August 31, 2019.

A 2.5km stretch of the 16.6km East-West Metro in Bowbazar has seen four accidents so far.

Cracks appeared in houses for the first time in September 2019 after a tunnel-boring machine hit an aquifer. There were three subsequent reruns — in May and October 2022, and again on September 6.

The KMRC is entrusted with building the houses. The agency has already picked a company to do the job.

The construction of the new homes was supposed to have started in April 2024. The KMRC had said it wanted to hand over the keys to the new homes by March 2026. But construction on the area that was the epicentre of the 2019 disaster has yet to begin.

A “bhoomi puja” was held at the site this February.

KMRC sources said the agency was now looking at a target of delivering the homes between June and December 2027, depending on the progress of the work.

“The meeting was fruitful. We could explain the status of the construction to the displaced residents,” said a KMRC official.

After the 2019 accident, the KMC appointed a team of three engineering professors from Jadavpur University to assess the condition of the damaged buildings. The report was submitted to KMC.

More than 100 families were displaced — forced to live in rented accommodations arranged by the KMRC — after the first subsidence.

The East-West Metro is now nearing completion. The corridor is now operational in two parts, between Howrah Maidan and Esplanade and between Sector V and Sealdah.

The Esplanade-Sealdah stretch has received a nod for commissioning from the commissioner of railway safety. Trains are expected to run between Howrah Maidan and Sector V soon, said a Metro official.