Kolkata, Feb 16 (IANS): Travel in the underground section of Metro Railway's Blue Line in Kolkata promises to get safer from May this year, with authorities working towards installing a battery-operated system that will enable a rake with passengers, stranded inside a tunnel, to the nearest station in case of a power failure.

There was a major outcry last year after a rake remained stranded in the tunnel between the Park Street and Maidan stations for nearly two hours before passengers could be rescued and made to walk along the tracks in the darkness to Park Street.

"This system will ensure that nothing of that sort takes place again. The Blue Line is the oldest and busiest one under Metro Railway, Kolkata. It has a long underground section between Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygunge) and Dum Dum. This system has already cleared inspection at its manufacturing unit in Taiwan and will be installed in May this year. It will provide several additional benefits," the spokesperson for Metro Railway, Kolkata, said.

He added that the system, known as the Battery Energy Storage System or BESS, will be installed at the Central sub-station of the Blue Line very soon.

The new system is an amalgamation of inverters and Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Batteries, and can be made operational in case of a sudden power cut or grid failure, he said.

"This is part of the National Programme on ACC Battery Storage approved by the Union Cabinet in 2021 with a budgetary outlay of more than Rs.18,000 crore. Metro Railway, Kolkata, is the first among all railway zones in the country - as well as all Metro networks - to work on such a project. An order was placed with M/s Delta Electronics Pvt Ltd on May 4, 2024, to install a 4 MW BESS with a 6.4 MWh Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery as the energy storage element. The layout plan and manufacturing clearance were issued in the month of September/October 2024. With fast-track processing and manufacturing, the ACC Battery pack of LFP type was ready for inspection in January 2025," he said.

"The inspection was carried out in February and a dispatch clearance was issued. It is expected that the battery pack will reach the installation site by mid-March and we plan to make it fully operational in May. As part of Make in India norms, the power converter system is being manufactured in India," the CPRO added.

He claimed that the new system has been designed in such a way that the electricity generated by it can be used to haul passenger-packed stranded rakes at 30 km/hr speed from mid-tunnel to the next station in case of any power failure or even the failure of the National Grid. The system will gradually be extended to all sub-stations in the network to facilitate rakes moving along the elevated sections, he said.

"In case of a fire, this new system will be instrumental in playing a key role by providing a power source for tunnel ventilation, Over the Track Exhaust (OTE) and platform ventilation. In fact, it will be an emergency power source for all operations," the CPRO said.