Little India

date_opened:=20 June 2003 Little India is an underground station on the North East Line and Downtown Line. This station was originally named Kandang Kerbau.

History
The station was first announced when the North East line stations were revealed on 6 March 1996. The announcement of the station was 'greatly welcomed' by the residents and shopkeepers in Little India, who hoped that the station will give the Little India district a 'new lease of life' with more developments around the station.

During the construction, on 7 October 1998, construction workers at the site unearthed human skeletons, alongside discoveries of gold, jewellery, coins and weapons such as machine guns and ammunition. Widely speculated to be massacred victims during the Japanese occupation, the exact origins of the remains remained unknown.

To facilitate the construction, Buffalo Lane, which connects shoppers to the nearby Tekka Centre, was set to be closed. However, the Moulmein Tekka Residents' Committee was concerned that the closure of the road will create inconvenience and road congestion around the station site. Eventually, a metal decking on the road was constructed to allow the public to utilise the road to access Tekka Centre as construction works continued underneath the decking. Although a simple solution, the road decking was needed to be shifted around five times during the construction. As the deck took up a notable amount of space at the worksite, the construction schedule has to be reworked which cost the Land Transport Authority (LTA) about $1 million (US$0.72 million).

Another challenge faced was the construction of the 53-metre (174 ft) underpass from the station to the opposite side of Bukit Timah Road underneath the Bukit Timah Canal. It was initially considered to use the conventional cut-and-cover method to construct the underpass but there were a few problems with the method. The method would involve disrupting the vehicular traffic on Bukit Timah Road, and obstructing the water flow of the canal, which could potentially lead to the flooding of the road, the station and the tunnels. An alternative method – the open-face tunnelling method used by miners – was then employed and was proven successful, without the need to disrupt the traffic on Bukit Timah Road.

Later on, it was opened on 20 June 2003 along with the other North East Line stations.