Watch: India’s first underwater metro zipping through, service starts month-end in Kolkata

Kolkata, Aug 9: Union Railway minister Piyush Goyal announced on Thursday that India's first underwater metro will be functional under Kolkata's Hooghly River.

On Twitter Mr Goyal shared a video and commented that the train is symbol of progress of railways. With this new service Kolkata residents will comfortable and country will be proud. He termed this as example of excellent engineering.

The video features Prime Minister Modi and talks about the engineering excellence in creating the underwater tunnels. It also speaks of 'four protective covers' which prevents water leakage inside the tunnels.

The 16km line will be made functional in 2 phases and will be part of Kolkata Metro's new Line 2.

The construction of underwater metro line began in April 2017. The first sector to be operational from month-end will be between Salt Lake Sector 5 station to Salt Lake Stadium station.

The underwater sector will connect Salt Lake Sector 5 station to Howrah Maidan station, the metro will take 60 seconds time under water.