Commercial services of India’s first underwater metro train commenced today with an influx of passengers onboard their first ride. 

The train operations started from the Howrah Maidan station on the East-West metro corridor of Kolkata at 7 am with loud cheers and claps from commuters, while another started from Esplanade station simultaneously.

Hundreds of commuters thronged the metro stations in the early morning to be a part of ‘first-day first underwater metro’ bandwagon. At Howrah Maidan station, commuters waited in a long queue to get a ticket, while the authorities greeted them with rose stems at Esplanade station.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section of Kolkata Metro’s East-West corridor, heralding India’s first venture into underwater metro services.

The Prime Minister took a ride on the train along with several school students. Modi also virtually inaugurated several other Metro services in Kolkata and across the country.

A new draw in metro mobility 

The Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section underwater Metro line has the first transportation tunnel under a river in the country. It passes under the Hooghly River and it has the deepest Metro station in India at Howrah (30 m deep).

As the train entered the under-river stretch, a glimpse of the illumination of the tunnel wall under the Hooghly River greeted the commuters, giving the effects of water around the moving rake.

The under-river section of the tunnel is 520 meters long, and a train took around 45 seconds to cross it. The Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section is also touted as the first transportation tunnel under any mighty river in India and has the deepest metro station at Howrah. 

The work for the East-West corridor began in 2009 and tunneling under the Hooghly River started in 2017. Meanwhile, the corridor’s Salt Lake Sector V to Sealdah stretch has already been commercially operational. 

Presently, the Kolkata Metro network spans a 47.93 km stretch including 32.13 km of North-South Corridor, 9.3 km of East-West Corridor, and 6.5 km of Joka-Esplanade Corridor. 

An extension of 13.27 km has also been envisaged. Of this, a 4.80 km stretch of East-West Metro from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade was inaugurated by PM on March 6 along with another extension of 1.25 km from Taratala to Majerhat and a 5.4 km stretch of New Metro Corridor from Kavi Subhas to Hemanta Mukhopadhyay.