KOLKATA: The city’s Purple line metro project has crossed a major hurdle with the environment ministry’s Central Empowered Committee (CEC) clearing the transplantation of 691 trees on the Maidan.
Based on a survey with the Army, custodian of the Maidan, Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), which is implementing the 14.4 km Joka-Esplanade (Purple) line, planned to transplant around 800 trees to build the underground Kidderpore, Park Street and Esplanade stations and a crossover at Manohar Das Tarag. As directed by CEC, the agency revised it, sparing trees in the working area.

The CEC was directed by the Supreme Court to examine the issue while hearing a plea by NGO People United for Better Living In Calcutta (PUBLIC) to save the trees in Maidan, which is considered the city’s lungs.
“The working area is the site around the main construction. Some space is needed for seamless movement of large equipment, cranes, concrete mixers, vehicles carrying raw material and so on,” a railway official said. RVNL will spare more trees as it proceeds with construction, like it has at the start of construction of Victoria Memorial station and the tunnel boring machine (TBM) launching shaft inside St Thomas’ Boys School.
The transplantation will be done in two phases, with around 450 trees in the first and the rest during the second round. The trees are being transplanted at Kamardanga near Beleghata. “RVNL didn’t have the permission to replant the trees at the Maidan,” a source explained.
With the CEC’s approval, work for the Purple line’s underground section will begin at full steam. For nearly a year, the project had slowed down because the infringing trees couldn’t be touched as per court order.
Consequently, basic construction for the Purple line’s Park Street Metro station—the diaphragm wall or D-wall that isolates the under-construction structure from the surrounding soil — couldn’t be built. Neither the crossover (for Metro tracks to switch lines) at Manohar Das Tarag nor the temporary BC Roy Market, with 528 stalls, at the Mounted Police Paddock grounds.
This is where traders of the existing BC Roy Market will be shifted to make way for the new Esplanade station. RVNL has already transplanted more than 100 trees and is on a scheme to plant around 2,500 as compensatory afforestation. The Purple line now runs on an elevated 7.7 km section from Joka to Majerhat. The 5 km Kidderpore-Esplanade section will be underground.