India's first underwater metro will be operational under Kolkata's Hooghly River, Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal announced on Thursday. He also shared an Indian Railways video on Twitter saying the underwater train is an "example of excellent engineering".
"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," Mr Goyal added in his tweet.
The video, that features Prime Minister Narendra Modi, talks about the engineering excellence that helped create the metro tunnels. The video, which was released by the Indian Railways, also speaks briefly of the 'four protective covers' that will prevent water leakage in the two tunnels.
The train will be part of the Kolkata's new Metro Line 2, also known as the East-West Metro. The 16km-line will be made operational in two phases. The first phase that connects Salt Lake Sector 5 station to Salt Lake Stadium station, spanning across 5 km is scheduled to start running later this month.
The underwater sector on this line will connect Salt Lake Sector 5 station to Howrah Maidan station. The metro will ride for 60 seconds under the water.
The construction of the 520 metres long and 30 metres deep metro tunnels began at the Howrah end in April 2017.
As of now, Kolkata has just one metro line, known as North-South Metro and the new line will help the commuters significantly.