The Esplanade-Sealdah section of East-West Metro (Green Line), the only unfinished stretch of the 16.6km corridor, was inspected by the commissioner of railway safety (CRS) on Sunday.

A CRS nod is mandatory before the commissioning of any railway line.

After the CRS approval, the stretch should be ready for commissioning very soon, said sources in the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation, the implementing agency of East-West Metro.

“But the formal date when the commercial services begin will be decided later,” said an official.

The commissioning of the 2.6km Esplanade-Sealdah section — which has seen four incidents of water leakage and soil subsidence since 2019, delaying the project for years — will effectively mean that the entire 16.6km corridor, linking Salt Lake Sector V
and Howrah Maidan, will be functional.

“Sumeet Singhal, commissioner of railway safety, Northeast Frontier Railway Circle, inspected the Esplanade-Sealdah section of Green Line today by undertaking a detailed inspection of all the sub-systems, namely track, tunnel, tunnel ventilation, train, emergency response features,” said a Metro spokesperson.

“After we receive a sanction from the CRS, the commissioning of the Esplanade-Sealdah section will be planned. It will effectively mean the entire 16.55km corridor will be functional.”

The corridor is now functional between Salt Lake Sector V and Sealdah (Green Line 1) and between Howrah Maidan and Esplanade (Green Line 2).

The 2.6km stretch between Esplanade and Sealdah is the only under-construction part of the corridor.

The civil construction of the stretch was completed in December, said an official of KMRC Then, the communication-based train control (CBTC) system — an advanced anti-collision system — was installed on the section.

Commercial services on the East-West Metro were suspended in phases for several days in the past two months to facilitate the trial of the
system.

The system was previously functional separately, as two units, in the two operational phases of the corridor.

After the civil construction was complete, trials were underway to bring the entire Howrah Maidan-Sector V corridor under one unified CBTC system, said engineers.

“The Esplanade-Sealdah section is ready, barring some minor finishing touches. The CRS approval is expected later this week or next. We will be operationally ready for commercial runs soon after we get the nod from the CRS,” said a senior official of KMRC.