<p>With increasing demand of tunneling projects for metro railway construction in urban areas, assessment of ground movements due to tunneling requires special attention for its influence to the adjoining structures, roadways and utilities. A comparative study of empirical methods, finite element analysis and instrumentation data was done to assess surface settlement (SS) for the construction of the twin tunnel in soft alluvial deposits for Kolkata East–West Metro, a significant metro project in India which runs under the river Hooghly. The soil primarily consists of alternate layers of silty clay/clayey silt followed by silty fine sand in the lower horizon. The study is based on four major instrumented sections of UG1 (from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade), which were numerically modeled, simulating the tunnel, subsoil properties and external loadings. The comparative results for all the sections show a good agreement of the surface settlement profile at a definite value of volume loss. Parametric studies were also undertaken considering variation in volume loss and depth to tunnel axis, change in horizontal settlement with variation in volume loss, change in SS due to cover depth to diameter ratio and change in SS due to variation of horizontal center-to-center distance between the two tunnels, with further instrumented subsections. The findings of the paper can potentially serve as a major guideline for future and recent tunneling projects, which are being undertaken in Kolkata, India.</p>