The East-West Metro authorities have started evacuating settlers from a six-storey building near Poddar Court on Thursday to make room for people displaced from their homes and shops after tunnel-digging work triggered subsidence in Bowbazar.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had referred to the building during her meeting with the railway authorities and other state government officials on September 3.

Water seeped into the tunnel after the tunnel-boring machine hit a sand aquifer containing a large amount of water. The seepage of water led to several houses being damaged.

Mamata had suggested accommodating some of those displaced in the Poddar Court building, whose construction begun in 2010 when she was the railway minister.

The building is owned by the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency of East-West Metro, which aims to connect Salt Lake Sector V with Howrah Maidan.

“We have started cleaning up the building so that some of those whose businesses have been hit by the collapse can be shifted here,” said A.K. Nandy, general manager KMRC.

Sources said an agency was hired and asked to bring in labourers who would clean up the floors after some of the settlers had moved out.

Located on Black Burn Lane near Poddar Court, several families had started to reside across the floors of the building for some time. Some of them had set up furniture inside curtained spaces while others chose the cemented floor to stack materials ranging from plywood boards, cane baskets, plastic sheets, drums and bamboos.

A police team reached the building early on Thursday and asked the settlers to move out before labourers started cleaning the floors. A cloud of dust filled the air as cleaning began.

The six-storey structure has a garbage compactor station close by and apart from walls on each floor the building has little else to show. The ground and first floors had at least 100 squatters and by the end of the day, Metro officials said almost everyone had left except a family, which has sought time till Friday.

“The building’s proximity to Bowbazar is one of the reasons why it is being considered as an alternative address for the residents,” said a KMRC official.

After the floors have been cleaned, the KMRC would look for ways to make the floors suitable for use for those who might want to move in for running their business.

“There is no power connection here. In Bowbazar, the CESC has restored the connection in some of the shops by Thursday,” the KMRC official said.