The Kolkata Metro or Calcutta Metro (Bengali: ) is a metro system serving the

city of Kolkata and the districts ofSouth 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas in the Indian state
of West Bengal. It is the first Underground metro railway system in India. The network consists
of one operational line (Line 1) and one under construction (Line 2), with four further lines in
various stages of planning. It was the first such form of transport in India, opening for
commercial services in 1984. It is the 17th zone of the Indian Railways system.

Contents
[hide]

1 History
2 Construction
3 Kolkata Metro Master Plan
3.1 Further information
3.2 Major modifications
4 Network
4.1 Line 1 (North-South Metro)
4.2 Line 2 (East-West Metro)
4.3 Line 3 (Diamond Park-Joka-B.B.D.Bag Metro)
4.4 Line 4 (Noapara-Barasat Metro)
4.5 Line 5/1 (Noapara-Dakshineswar Strech)
4.6 Line 5 (Baranagar-Barrackpore Metro)
4.7 Line 6 (New Garia-Biman Bandar Metro)
5 Infrastructure

 5.1 Rolling Stock

5.2 Stations and Electrification
5.3 Signalling and Frequency
6 Facilities and services
6.1 Tokens
6.2 Smart Card
6.3 Security
6.4 Departments
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

History[edit]
After Independence in 1947, the transport problem of Kolkata drew the attention of the city
planners, the state government and also the government of India. It was soon realized that
something had to be done and quickly in order to cope with the situation. It was Dr. Bidhan
Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, who for the first time conceived the idea
in 1949, of building an Underground Railway for Kolkata to try to solve the problems to some
extent. A survey was done by a team of French experts but nothing concrete came of this.
Efforts to solve the problem by augmenting the existing fleet of public transport vehicles
hardly helped since roads account for only 4.2% of the surface area in Calcutta, and this is
compared to 25% in Delhi and even 30% in other cities. With a view to finding out an
alternative solution to alleviate the suffering of the Calcuttans, the Metropolitan Transport
Project (Rlys) was set up in 1969. The MTP (Rlys), with help of Soviet specialists
(Lenmetroproekt) and East German engineers, prepared a master plan of providing five rapidtransit (metro) lines for the city of Kolkata, totalling a route length of 97.5 km in 1971, but
only three were selected for construction. These were:

Dum Dum - Tollygunge

Salt Lake City - Ramrajatala (truncated till Howrah Maidan)
Dakshineshwar - Thakurpukur (route changed to Joka - BBD Bagh)
Of these, the highest priority was given to the busy north-south axis between Dum
Dum and Tollygunge over a length of 16.45 km, and the work on this project was sanctioned
on 1 June 1972. The foundation stone of the project was laid by Indira Gandhi, the then Prime
Minister of India, on 29 December 1972 and the construction work started in 1973-74. In
those early days of Kolkata Metro, the planning, thought processing, and political facilitation
of the whole project was borne almost single-handedly by the then Union Railway
Minister from West bengal - A. B. A. Ghani Khan Choudhury - often against (and to the chagrin
of) the prevailing socio-political stance of his contemporaries in the West Bengal government.
From the start of construction, the project had to contend with several problems including
insufficient funds (until 1977-78), a shifting of underground utilities, court injunctions, and an
irregular supply of vital materials. Despite the difficulties faced, services began on October
24, 1984, with the commissioning of a partial commercial service covering a distance of
3.40 km with five stations served in between Esplanade and Bhowanipur. The first metro was
driven by Tapan Kumar Nath and Sanjoy Sil. The service was quickly followed by commuter
services on another 2.15 km stretch in the north between Dum Dum and Belgachhia on
November 12, 1984. The commuter service was extended up to Tollygunge on April 29, 1986
covering a further distance of 4.24 km making the service available over a distance of
9.79 km and covering 11 stations. However, the services on the north section were
suspended with effect from October 26, 1992, as this isolated small section was little used.
After a gap of more than eight years, the 1.62 km Belgachhia-Shyambazaar section, along
with the Dum Dum-Belgachhia stretch, was opened on August 13, 1994. Another 0.71 km
stretch from Esplanade toChandni Chowk was commissioned shortly afterwards, on October 2,
1994. The Shyambazaar-Shobhabazar-Girish Park (1.93 km) and Chandni ChowkCentral (0.60 km) sections were opened on February 19, 1995. Services on the entire stretch
of the Metro were introduced from September 27, 1995 by bridging the vital gap of 1.80 km in
the middle. [3]
In the final stage, the extension of Line 1 to an elevated corridor from Tollygunge to New
Garia was constructed and opened in two phases, Mahanayak Uttam Kumar to Kavi Nazrul in
2009 and Kavi Nazrul to Kavi Subhash in 2010. The latest extension constructed was the
2.59 km elevated corridor from Dum Dum to Noapara on 10 July 2013.

Construction[edit]
The North-South metro construction required several new technologies in the fields of civil,
electrical, signaling and telecommunications engineering. Indian engineers backed by their
own experience and helped by their studies abroad, used the following advanced
technologies for the first time in India:
Cut-and-cover method of construction using diaphragm walls and sheet piles
Use of extensive decking to keep the traffic flowing over the cut section while construction
continued underneath
Shield tunneling using compressed air and airlocks

Ballast-less track, using elastic fastenings, rubber pads, epoxy mortar and nylon inserts
Air-conditioning and ventilation systems for environmental control of stations and tunnels
Third rail current collection system for traction

Underground substations with dry type transformers and SF6 circuit breakers
Tunnel-train, VHF-radio communications system
Micro-processor based train control, and supervisory remote control system for substations
Automatic ticket vending and checking systems
All the new lines were constructed by the new state-of-art technologies. Most of the new links
are elevated with only a few being underground. Unlike the North-South Corridorwhich used
the cut-and-cover method for the whole underground route, the tunnels of the new lines were
constructed using a tunnel-boring machine (TBM).

Kolkata Metro Master Plan[edit]

Kolkata Metro System Map

In 2010, the Railway Ministry announced plans for the construction of five new metro lines
and an extension of the existing North-South corridor. These new projects are:

Salt Lake City - Howrah Maidan

Joka - BBD Bagh
Noapara - Barasat via Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport
Baranagar - Barrackpore

Noapara - Dakshineswar

New Garia - Airport

Extension of Line 1 from Dum Dum to Dakshineshwar via Noapara

Further information[edit]
Kolkata Metro Railway - Official Site - for extension details

Major modifications[edit]
Construction of station at Noapara: A new 4-platform station has been constructed at
Noapara. Commuters of Line 1 will be able to interchange trains going towards the Airportvia
Line 4 (Noapara-Barasat). For the time being only two platforms are in use, but once Line 4
gets started, all four platforms will become operational.
Upgrade of "Central" metro station: A subway is going to be constructed in the
existingCentral station to provide an interchange between Line 1 and Line 2. Commuters will
have to pass through the subway to access the new station that will be constructed on the
west side of the existing station.

Network[edit]
Line
Line 1
Line 2

First
Length
Last Extension Stations
operational
(km)
24 October 1984 10 July 2013
24
28.14 Noapara
Howrah
September 2015
12
14.67
Maidan

Line 3

15

17.075 Diamond Park

Line 4
Line 5
Line 5/1
Line 6
Total

9
11
03
24
90

17.13
12.40
4.11
29.10
120.25

Line 1 (North-South Metro)[edit]

Main article: Kolkata Metro Line 1

Noapara
Baranagar
Noapara
Kavi Subhash

Terminals
Kavi Subhash
Salt Lake Sector 5
Mahakaran(BBD
BAG)
Barasat
Barrackpore
Dakshineswar
Airport

Kolkata metro Railway,the oldest metro in India

Line 1 has a total length of 28 kilometres (17 mi) serving 24 stations of which 15 are
underground. It has a combination of elevated, ground-level and underground lines and uses
five and a half feet (1676 milimetres) of Indian gauge, a broad gauge rolling stock. It was the
first underground railway to be built in India, with the first trains running in October 1984, and
the full stretch that had been initially planned was completed and operational by February
1995. On 28 December 2010, it became the 17th zone of the Indian Railways.[4] TheNew
Delhi Metro, which opened in 2002, is the second such urban metro rail network in India. It
had benefitted from the expertise gained during the Kolkata metro construction. In being the
countrys first metro and constructed as a completely indigenous process, the Kolkata Metro
was more of a trial-and-error affair, in contrast to the Delhi Metro, which has also seen the
involvement of numerous international consultants. As a result, it took nearly 23 years to
completely construct a 17 km underground railway.[1]

1.Kavi Subhash (New Garia)

2.Shahid Khudiram ( (Briji)
3.Kavi Nazrul (Garia Bazar)
4.Gitanjali (Naktala)
5.Masterda Surya Sen (Bansdroni)
6.Netaji (Kudghat)
7.Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygounge)
8.Rabindra Sarobar
9.Kalighat

10.Jatin Das Park

11.Netaji Bhavan
12.Rabindra sadan
13.Maidan

14.Park Street
15.Esplanade
16.Chandni Chowk
17.Central

18.Mahatma Gandhi Road

19.Girish Park
20.Shobhabazar Sutanuti

21.Shyambazaar
22.Belgachhia
23.Dum Dum
24.Noapara

Line 2 (East-West Metro)[edit]

Main article: Kolkata Metro Line 2
East-West Metro, a 48745.8 rupees ( ) (US$779.9) project to connect Kolkata with Howrah by
an underwater metro line was given the go-ahead by the central government. [5]The length
will be 14.67 km (8.9 km underground and 5.77 km elevated). This line will be constructed
and maintained by a separate body named Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation(KMRC). However, in
January 2011 KMRC and the entire East West (EW) metro corridor, was taken over by the
Ministry of Railways from the Ministry of Urban development and the state government of
West Bengal. Now the EW Metro's majority stake is with the Indian Railways and the
remainder is as a loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
The West Bengal government had earlier appointed Delhi