Before D-day, Kolkata Metro seeks Delhi help for seamless East-West operations

KOLKATA: Metro Railway is in talks with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to outsource operations of the new East-West Metro stretch and eventually the entire Line 2 when the 16km corridor is completed and Sector V is linked with Howrah Maidan. The endeavour to reach out to DMRC to improve operational efficiency stems from Kolkata Metro’s depleting manpower.
Though Kolkata’s lifeline records around 6 lakh footfall a day, it has been running on huge losses for several years now.In fact, for every Rs 100 earned, Metro Railway spends around Rs 300, even as East-West Metro has added much to the revenue since it was extended to Sealdah in 2022. Even as the operating ratio (of total working expenses to earnings) that had shot to 450 % in 2021 is expected to reduce to 160% following the opening of the Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section.
“But then, we don’t have the manpower to seamlessly manage a system as sophisticated as the East-West Metro, which has a 520m stretch of tracks below the Hooghly riverbed,” said an official. As a first step toward outsourcing, tenders are being called to hire private security agencies at the four Metro stations dotting the 4.8km Esplanade-Howrah Maidan line.
The over-burdened Metro Railway would often take flak for failing to run trains on time. It was then saddled with the East-West Metro, a modern technology-based utility, because the rail ministry in 2012 divested KMRC of the responsibility of operating and maintaining East-West Metro and handed it over to Metro Railway. Thus, KMRC is only a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the railway ministry that will be dissolved once the 16km corridor is completed around Nov this year.
The authorities are, however, tight-lipped about DMRC’s role in Kolkata Metro. When asked about it, Metro Railway’s general manager P Uday Kumar Reddy said, “No comments.”
But officials admitted that East-West Metro’s superior BEML-make rakes’ regular upkeep will become a headache when KMRC is eventually dissolved. The line is operated by the advanced communication-based train control (CBTC), of which DMRC is an expert. DMRC has already undergone the three phases of CBTC 3— automatic train protection (ATP), automatic train operation (ATO) and driverless train operation (DTO). East-West Metro has recently been upgraded from ATP to ATO. Eventually, it will become DTO.
“DMRC is a pioneer in DTO. Its trains are controlled entirely from its three command centres, without any human intervention. The CBTC signalling technology also makes it possible to monitor and troubleshoot every aspect of train operations remotely,” an engineer said.