The government yesterday floated an international tender to purchase 144 carriages for the country's first-ever metro rail.

“We have floated the tender as manufacturing and supplying rail carriages is time consuming,” said Mofazzel Hossain, project director of the Tk 21,000 crore metro rail project.

Prospective bidders would first be selected and one of them would be chosen following scrutiny of its technical and financial proposals for the job worth an estimated Tk 2,750 crore.

Tenders for the other components of the project, like constructing lines, viaducts and operation building, electrical and signalling systems, power substation, and operation building, were going to be floated in February and May.

Geo-technical and other surveys were being carried out on the 20km metro rail stretching from Uttara Third Phase to Motijheel. The route would go through Pallabi, Rokeya Sarani, Khamarbari, Farmgate, Hotel Sonargaon, Shahbagh, TSC, Doyel Chattar and Topkhana Road.

The first phase, starting from Uttara Third Phase to Agargaon, of the metro rail was scheduled to be done by December 2019, and from Agargaon to Bangladesh Bank at Motijheel by 2021.

Japan is providing majority of the metro rail fund. It has already approved $2.1 billion in soft loan.

According to a study of Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), 14 trains would operate every three minutes and carry 60,000 passengers every hour.

The country's second largest infrastructure project after the $2.9 billion Padma Bridge project faced complexities in the last few years over modification of routes following objections from the air force and conflict with the Gulistan-Jatrabari flyover.

“Now the project is on the right track,” said the PD.