Metro Dream closer to reality
Bangladesh's first ever metro rail service will launch in December next year, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said yesterday, raising the city dwellers' hope of daily commutes free of tailbacks.
At least, the service between Uttara and Agargaon, a distance of 11.73km, will be operational by the end of 2022, Quader said while inaugurating the beginning of a series of test runs of the metro train on viaduct yesterday.
Uttara-Agargaon is part of the 20.10km route to Motijheel. The Mass Rapid Transit Line-6 or MRT-6, the country's first metro rail service, is being built at a cost of Tk 21,985 crore.
"We hope the prime minister will be able to inaugurate... the metro rail, Padma bridge and Bangabandhu tunnel next year," he said.
Padma bridge will be inaugurated in June. The second mega project to be inaugurated will be the Bangabandhu Tunnel under the Karnaphuli river. The Mass Rapid Transit Line-6 (metro rail), the dream of young people and a priority of the government, will be inaugurated late next year, he added.
TEST RUNS START
Top officials of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd (DMTCL), the implementing agency of the project, over 100 journalists, many engineers and workers gathered at the workshop at the depot in the capital's Diabari yesterday morning.
Around 11:00am, MAN Siddique, the MD of DMTCL, briefed reporters about the programme.
Quader, also the general secretary of Awami League, MAN Siddique, along with Minister and Deputy of the Mission of Japan Embassy in Bangladesh Hiroyuki Yamaya, and Chief Representative of JICA Bangladesh Yuho Hayakawa, and several other officials, entered the train and inspected it for several minutes.
Quader then gave a speech. Around 11:50am, the train, consisting of six cars, came close to the podium inside the depot.
The minister then waved a green flag, signaling the rain to start its first run.
Apart from a train operator from the Japanese company, a resident engineer, and Project Manager ABM Arifur Rahman were inside the train.
It was operated at 25km per hour on the main tracks while 5km per hour at the station, Arifur said. The train was operated between Uttara North, Uttara Centre, Uttara South, and Pallabi.
The electric train can reach up to 100kmph.
"We successfully completed today's test run. It was a good start," Arifur told The Daily Star, adding that he and the experts did several technical checks during the test run.
When the train reached Pallabi station, hundreds of people were seen watching it from the streets and rooftops.
Munna Islam, a resident of Mirpur-12, went to the roof of a six-story building to see the train.
"It will be really helpful to us. We heard it would take 20 to 25 minutes to reach Motijheel from Mirpur once the service begins," he told this correspondent.
WHAT'S NEXT
Quader said construction of 19.02km, out of 20.10km viaducts, have already been done. Apart from the depot, the tracks have been installed on 17.24km of it.
Wiring on 17.44km of overhead catenary system has also been done. Four of the 24 trains have reached Dhaka from Japan. The rest will reach gradually, he said.
Testing of the train inside the depot started on May 11, he said.
The overall performance tests may take six months and the integrity tests may continue for three months, he added.
After that, five months of trial runs without passengers will be carried out before starting commercial service, he added.
"Metro rail is no longer a dream, it is now a reality."
The original implementation period for the fast-track project was from July 2012 to June 2024. But Prime Minister Sheik Hasina inaugurated the physical work in June, 2016.
She later directed that the metro services from Uttara-Agargaon be operational by 2019, and from Agargaon-Motijheel by 2020.
Failing to meet the deadline, the authorities in May 2019 said the services would be launched on December 16 this year to coincide with the golden jubilee of Bangladesh's independence. But construction work lost pace amid the pandemic, forcing the authorities to extend the deadline again, officials said.
The overall progress of the project was 44.12 percent in March last year, when the first cases of coronavirus were detected in the country. As of July this year, the project made 68.49 percent progress, falling short of what was anticipated at the outset.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, in his budget speech in June and MAN Siddique at a programme on July 30 hinted that partial operation of the metro rail service was likely to start in December next year.
There will be 16 stations between Uttara and Motijheel. Around 60,000 people will be able to commute every hour between Uttara and Motijheel in just about 40 minutes. The journey now takes about two hours on a regular day.
The authorities later decided to extend the line to Kamalapur. However, physical work of this portion has not started yet.
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