The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved Rs 8,575 crore for the Kolkata East West Metro Corridor Project covering 16.6 kilometers with 12 stations in the city. The Cabinet also decided to conduct a nationwide awareness in public places about preventive measures for Covid-19 and introduce e-marketing in the natural gas sector to move towards a gas-based economy.
The Cabinet further nodded the ratification of seven persistent organic pollutants listed under the Stockholm Convention.
Addressing the media following the Cabinet meeting, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said the new metro corridor in Kolkata will ease traffic congestion, enhance urban connectivity and provide a cleaner mobility solution to lakhs of daily commuters.
The project is being implemented by the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited, a CPSE under Ministry of Railways. “Estimated completion cost of the project is - Rs. 8575 crore with Ministry of Railway’s share as Rs 3268.27 crore, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ share as Rs.1148.31 crore and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) loan of Rs.4158.40 crore,” said the Government in a statement.
Goyal said that the target date for completion of the entire project is December 2021.
For his part, Union I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the Government will start a mass awareness campaign on preventive measures on Covid-19 from Thursday. “Mask, social distancing and washing hands are the only weapons to remain safe in the absence of vaccine to prevent Covid-19. Public camping to raise awareness about appropriate behavior in all public places will start from tomorrow,” he said.
Javadekar also said that the Cabinet approved ratification of seven persistent organic pollutants listed under the Stockholm Convention. “The regulation prohibited the manufacture, trade, use, import and export seven chemicals namely (i) Chlordecone, (ii) Hexabromobiphenyl, (iii) Hexabromodiphenyl ether and Heptabromodiphenylether (Commercial octa-BDE), (iv) Tetrabromodiphenyl ether and Pentabromodiphenyl ether (Commercial penta-BDE), (v) Pentachlorobenzene, (vi) Hexabromocyclododecane, and (vii) Hexachlorobutadiene, which were already listed as POPs under Stockholm Convention,” said the statement.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the ‘Natural Gas Marketing Reforms’, taking another significant step to move towards gas-based economy. “The objective of the policy is to prescribe standard procedure to discover market price of gas to be sold in the market by gas producers, through a transparent and competitive process, permit Affiliates to participate in bidding process for sale of gas and allow marketing freedom to certain Field Development Plans (FDPs) where Production Sharing Contracts already provide pricing freedom,” said Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, adding that bidding will be online to provide transparency.