Kolkata: The city’s Orange Line achieved a milestone as the wheels rolled across the much-talked-about Chingrighata stretch on EM Bypass, bridging the gap between Beleghata station at Metropolitan and the Sector V station. This means, the tracks are now ready for a train to be driven till Sector V station, where the Orange Line interfaces with the Green Line or the Sector V-Howrah Maidan corridor.On Thursday, Metro Railway successfully conducted the ‘push trolley’ inspection on the Beleghata (Metropolitan)-IT Centre section of the Kavi Subhash (New Garia)-Jai Hind Bimanbandar (airport) corridor. TOI reported on Aug 16 that after more than six years, the city’s Orange Line finally crossed the Chingrighata bottleneck. The last 31m concrete deck slab was placed that day to bridge the 366m gap at Chingrighata, thus paving the way for passenger services from New Garia to Sector V. Now, the Orange Line has progressed another significant step toward the goal to start Orange Line operations up to Sector V or the IT Centre station.The Orange Line currently runs 9km from New Garia (Kavi Subhas station) to Metropolitan (Beleghata station). It would have been functional till Sector V in June 2025, had the 366m viaduct bridging work been completed in Jan 2025. The major hurdle was removed over two successive weekends in mid-May 2026 when concrete girders across the Chingrighata crossing were successfully erected, as vehicles were diverted through the new road built by RVNL in Dec 2024.“The first push trolley inspection on the Beleghata–IT Centre section of Kavi Subhash–Jai Hind Bimanbandar Metro Corridor (Orange Line) was conducted on Sept 17, marking a major milestone for the project,” a Metro Railway spokesperson said.With the viaduct and ballastless track works on the section now complete, the stretch is ready for beginning of the electrical works, he said. A ballastless track is a modern railway design where the traditional bed of loose crushed stones (ballast) is replaced by a rigid structure made of concrete or asphalt.The 32km Kavi Subhash–Jai Hind Bimanbandar Metro project, sanctioned in 2010, is being executed in five phases. “The first two phases, Kavi Subhash to Hemanta Mukhopadhyay (Ruby cross) and Hemanta Mukhopadhyay to Beleghata, have already been commissioned and passenger services are running. The third phase, Beleghata to the IT Centre, has now been substantially completed,” the Metro official said.Metro Railway’s general manager Prem Sagar Gupta had earlier told TOI that they were looking at a Dec 31-deadline to commission the Orange Line’s Beleghata(Metropolitan)-IT Centre (Sector V) section. And then, passengers will be able to zip from New Garia to Sector V in just half-an-hour. All the three new metro stations and the viaduct between Beleghata station and IT Centre station have now built.
