Under-river metro tunnel

Facts for Prelims

Under-river metro tunnel

News: Recently, PM Modi inaugurated a metro train service between Howrah Maidan and Esplanade in Kolkata, marking the opening of Indias first under-river metro tunnel.

About:
• It is a part of Kolkata Metro East-West Corridor.
• It passes under the Hooghly River in the citys northeast, with the tunnel 13 meters below the riverbed and 37 meters below ground level.
• It forms part of the 4.8 km underground section from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade.
• The stretch also has the deepest metro station in the country, the Howrah Maidan station, at 32 metres below ground level.
• The metro is expected to cover the 520-meter stretch under the Hooghly River in 45 seconds.

About Hoogly river:
• The Hooghly River, also known as the Bhagirathi-Hoogly and Kati-Ganga Rivers, is one of the significant rivers in West Bengal. It is a distributary of Ganga river.
• It is formed in Murshidabad, where the Ganga splits into two parts, while the part flowing through Bangladesh is called the Padma.
• The other part is the Hooghly, which flows through a heavily industrialized area of West Bengal.
• The Hooghly River is silted up above Kolkata, and the river flows to the west and south to the estuary of Rupnarayan and then south and southwest to enter the Bay of Bengal through a 32-kilometer-wide estuary.
• The Hooghly’s majority of water comes from the Farakka Feeder Canal instead of natural water.
• The Farakka Barrage is a dam that diverts water from the Ganges into a canal near the town of Tildanga in Malda district. This supplies the Hooghly with adequate water even in the dry season.
• The important cities near the Hoogli River are Jiaganj, Azimganj, Murshidabad, and Baharampur.