Title - E-W faces cost climb

The East-West Metro is barely 30 per cent complete but the estimated cost has already gone up by nearly Rs 1,625 crore and may rise further as unavailability of land keeps delaying the project.
“The project cost has gone up by more than 33 per cent, from Rs 4,875 crore to around Rs 6,500,” a railway ministry official told Metro. “The cost can go up more if land issues remain unresolved. The state government has to intervene to help remove the hurdles.”
The Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation(KMRC), the implementing agency of the project that aims to link Salt Lake Sector V with Howrah Maidan, has recently sent the revised estimate to the railway ministry.
“The ministry is yet to decide on approving the increased amount,”the official said.
Sources said the cost escalation resulted from a rise in the prices of construction materials and cost of labour.
If the KMRC has to pay the damages private contractors are seeking because of the delay caused by land knots, the estimatewill rise further.
Work on building the 14.67km link had started in April 2009. The original deadline was 2013-14.
“The project is set to miss the deadline as work could only be done in bits and pieces because of land problems. Between Salt Lake and Central station, 90 per cent of the civil construction work for the viaduct and 40 per cent for tunnel boring is over. But on the remaining stretch, progress has hardly been 5 per cent,” said an official.
The revised deadline is August 2015 for the Sector V-Central stretch and September 2016 for the rest.
The project is stuck at three points — Bowbazar, BBD Bag and Duttabad (Salt Lake) — because of encroachments the government seems loath to remove. The alignment of the route between Central and Howrah Maidan has not been finalised as the state government is yet to hand over land at Bowbazar to the KMRC.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), the main funding agency of East-West Metro, has threatened to snap ties with the project if the delay continues. Jica is to provide Rs 2,253 crore.
KMRC managing director Hemant Kumar Sharma wrote to Jica abouta fortnight back, requesting the agency to continue its support. “We are pursuing the state government regarding alignment issues,” Sharma stated in the letter. “….You (Jica) are requested to kindly continue your support to KMRC.”
Afcons, the infrastructure arm of Shapoorji Pallonji, has sought a compensation of Rs 257 crore from the KMRC for being unable to start work. Afcons has been awarded the contract to lay the tracks between Howrah Maidan and Central.
Another construction company, Gammon India, has sought to pull out of the contract to build a 365-metre elevated stretch at Salt Lake’s Duttabad because of unavailability of land and demanded a compensation of Rs 19 crore for “prolongation of the contract”.
“A delay in such infrastructure projects leads to an average cost overrun of 10 to 15 per cent,” said an official of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.
The Delhi government, he pointed out, seeks a progress report every month.
In Calcutta, however, the state government seeks no such report as it has no stake in the project. The state’s stake was transferred to the railway when Trinamul was holding the ministry in 2012.