The track-laying work in the Bowbazar section of East-West Metro has been completed, the agency building the corridor said on Tuesday.

The two-kilometre stretch between Esplanade and Sealdah stations is the only unfinished part of East-West Metro (Blue Line), now functional in two phases — between Sealdah and Sector V and between Howrah Maidan and Esplanade.

The stretch, more specifically, a 200m patch in Bowbazar, has seen multiple incidents of water seepage and soil subsidence that have delayed the project.

Senior officials conducted a trolley inspection through the west-bound (Howrah-bound) tunnel on Tuesday evening.

“Last week, we finished laying tracks in the west-bound tunnel. It marked the completion of civil engineering work in the west-bound tunnel,” said an official of the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation, the implementing agency of the 16.6km East-West corridor.

“A long battle of more than five years was finally won by using advanced retrofitting methods, geo-stabilisation techniques with geophysical investigation and modern track fittings,” Metro Railway said on Tuesday.

The east-bound tunnel is more prepared than the west-bound tunnel. But some minor civil engineering work is left in the tunnel, said officials.

“The target is to complete the civil engineering work in the east-bound tunnel by the first week of January,” said one of them.

The electrical and signalling work will be done after that and Metro is planning to have a CRS inspection by the end of March. An inspection by the commissioner of railway safety is mandatory before any railway stretch becomes functional.