Kolkata: After more than six years, the city’s Orange Line has finally cleared the Chingrighata bottleneck — the last 31-m concrete deck slab was placed on Sunday to bridge the 366-m gap, paving the way for passenger services from New Garia to Sector V. Girder-launching at the intersection was completed in 90 days, and Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), implementing the 32km New Garia-Airport corridor, hoisted the Tricolour on the 12m high Chingrighata viaduct on Saturday to mark the occasion.“The major construction bottleneck for the Orange Line at Chingrighata has been cleared at last,” a Metro official said.Metro Railway GM Prem Sagar Gupta recently said they are looking at a Dec 31 deadline to commission the Beleghata (Metropolitan)-IT Centre (Sector V) section, when passengers will be able to zip from New Garia to Sector V in just half-an-hour. In the 366-m viaduct bridging work, the major hurdle was removed over two successive weekends in mid-May when concrete girders were successfully erected across the Chingrighata crossing, as vehicles were diverted through the new road built by RVNL in Dec 2024.The police nod had been pending for 15 months despite multiple prods from Calcutta High Court. RVNL has been facing trouble proceeding with the Orange Line constructions at Chingrighata since 2020. In Aug 2020, IIT-Kharagpur cleared the contentious pillar 318 planned in the middle of the crossing. KMDA, the keepers of EM Bypass, had wanted the pillar dropped because of the space it would take up at the vital intersection. In May 2023, the state finally issued the NOC for construction of pier 318. But then, RVNL was stuck since Feb 2, 2025, for the traffic block at Chingrighata since Kolkata Police had been jittery about giving up the crossing.
