Maidan clubs fit in containers to make room for metro stations

Kolkata: Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) has started pulling down Calcutta Police Club, one of the century-old Maidan tent clubs, to make way for the underground Park Street and Esplanade Metro stations of the Joka-Esplanade corridor or the Purple Line. Three more Maidan clubs will have to go. A fifth, Kalighat Club, has been saved as only the grounds are needed for the Park Street Metro station construction, a Railways engineer said.
Members of the heritage clubs are not complaining, though.Their temporary addresses are four swanky and compact portable containers with in-built gym, players’ dressing room, conference room, guest room, restroom, ladies sitting area et al, as provided by RVNL — the implementing agency of the 14km Joka-Esplanade Metro. “We are in the same location, at the Maidan, with all kinds of facilities. RVNL has taken care of everything,” said Mahadev Chakraborty of Calcutta Police Club.

RVNL will rebuild the clubs once construction of the Metro stations is over in the next three years.
Next on the razing line are Calcutta Kennel Club and Rajasthan Club, which are on the site of the proposed Park Street Metro station, between Mayo Road and the Park Street crossing, opposite the North-South Metro’s Park Street Metro station.
The Kidderpore Sporting Club, located next to the BC Roy or Maidan Market, will also be pulled down to make room for the Esplanade Metro station. The sleek containers have been procured by contractors L&T from a manufacturer in the outskirts of Kolkata. The clubs will be razed as the containers are ready for use, the Railways engineer said.
RVNL had first broached the proposal of shifting the Maidan tent clubs falling on the Metro alignment at a stakeholders’ meeting in 2022. Since then, the clubs have been clamouring for alternative sites for shifting, within the vicinity of their present location in the Maidan, of which Army is the custodian. At a meeting on July 17 last year, the state government told the club management that they had a month’s time to relocate. Finally, in March this year, the portable containers were manufactured and offered to the clubs so that the last two stations of the Purple Line could be built.