Joka: Four companies have responded to the tender floated for the construction of the maintenance depot of Joka-Esplanade Metro in Joka, work on which has been held up for years because of land acquisition problems.

The tender was floated last month following an assurance from the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) that all hurdles related to the acquisition of the plot on which the depot would come up would be removed.

"... it is assured that KMC would extend their best help in completing the land acquisition process for Joka maintenance depot in a reasonable time frame and also help to persuade amicably with the stake holders to address/resolve the issues, if any, crop up during execution of work. Therefore, the RVNL may go ahead with the tendering and execution work for Joka maintenance depot," reads a recent letter from municipal commissioner Khalil Ahmed to Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), the implementing agency of the project.

The letter followed a meeting between mayor Sovon Chatterjee and RVNL.

RVNL had earlier tried to float tenders twice - since 2011 - for the depot. The process had to be scrapped on both occasions because the owners of many plots, which RVNL had planned to merge to create one composite plot for the depot, refused to hand over their properties on the ground that the compensation being offered was not satisfactory.

"We finally floated the tender following a written assurance from the civic body. Four construction companies have bid for the project. We will review the situation (status of land acquisition) before selecting a firm," a railway official said.

"We do not want work to get stalled and the company awarded the contract to seek compensation for delay, like what has happened in all Metro projects."

All Metro projects in the city are running late by years because of land logjam. However, over the past two years, the state government has taken the initiative to remove encroachers and hand over the required land to the railways.

According to the plan, the depot will come up on a 62-acre plot. "More than 56 per cent of the land has been acquired," the official said.

"The acquisition process had slowed down recently. We are expecting the process to speed up after the civic authorities promised help," the official said.

Railway officials said setting up the maintenance depot was mandatory because the the Joka-Majerhat link was a standalone project, not connected to the other Metro routes. "It will take two years after the entire land is made available to us for the service to start," an official said.