This is how India's first underwater Metro could look like

Representational Image (Wikimedia)

The nation’s first underwater train is coming up in West Bengal and will pass under Kolkata's Hooghly River. Piyush Goyal, Railway Minister, announced on August 8 that it will soon be operational while sharing a video of the metro line, which will have this underwater train.

Dubbing the train an “example of excellent engineering”, the union minister tweeted in Hindi: “This train is a symbol of the progress of the railway in the country. With this, Kolkata residents will feel comfortable, and the country will feel proud.”

भारत की पहली अंडर वॉटर ट्रेन शीघ्र ही कोलकाता में हुगली नदी के नीचे चलना आरंभ होगी। उत्कृष्ट इंजीनियरिंग का उदाहरण यह ट्रेन देश में निरंतर हो रही रेलवे की प्रगति का प्रतीक है।

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इसके बनने से कोलकाता निवासियों को सुविधा, और देश को गर्व का अनुभव होगा। pic.twitter.com/MDzj42s5XZ

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) August 8, 2019

As of now, there is only one metro line in Kolkata, known as North-South Metro. The underwater train is being constructed under the upcoming East-West Metro in Kolkata or Metro Line 2. The 16-km-long metro corridor is being built in two phases.

The 5-km stretch connecting Salt Lake Sector 5 station to Salt Lake Stadium station, which is supposed to be operational by the end of this month, comes under phase one. The citizens of Kolkata are eagerly waiting for this line to become operational as it has been touted to reduce travel time considerably.

Sixty seconds of travel using Metro Line 2 will be underwater and will cover the stretch between Salt Lake Sector 5 station and Howrah Maidan metro station.

Work on constructing the under-water metro tunnels began in April 2017 at Howrah. Each of the tunnels are more than 500-metre-long and 30 metres deep approximately.

Notably, Kolkata, which is one of the four metropolitan cities in the country, boasted of India’s first Metro line and now it will also get the nation’s first under-river metro.