Metro Rail: PM to open service up to Motijheel in October
The metro rail route from Agargaon to Motijheel will be opened to public in October this year, said Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader.
"Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate this section of the MRT Line-6," he added.
He made the announcement yesterday while addressing a seminar organised by Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre.
The Uttara-Agargaon section of the country's first elevated metro rail line, formally known as MRL Line-6, was opened in December last year.
At that time, it was announced that the Agargaon-Motijheel section would open in December and the Motijheel-Kamalapur section would open in June 2025.
In April, Quader said the Agargaon-Motijheel section would open in November.
In his speech at the seminar, MAN Siddique, managing director of DMTCL, the implementing agency of the project, gave details about the project's progress and preparation.
He said the metro rail's performance test on the Agargaon-Motijheel section will begin next month, followed by the integrity test in September.
Then, in October, they will conduct a passenger-free trial run on this section before launching the formal operation, Sidduqe added.
When asked if there is a link between the next general election and moving up the launch date, Quader denied it.
When the Uttara-Agargaon section opened last year, work on the Agargaon-Motijheel section had advanced significantly, the minister said at a post-seminar press briefing
"Our ability to finish earlier [than scheduled], demonstrates our current capability," he said.
In August 2021, the performance test on the Uttara-Agargaon section began and the metro rail authority took till December 2022 to open the section.
When asked, how the tests would be now completed in such a short time, Quader said, "We are now more experienced than before."
Two Dhaka city corporation mayors Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh and Atiqul Islam, Rawshan Ara Mannan, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on road transport and bridges ministry, Japanese ambassador in Dhaka Iwama Kiminori and Ichiguchi Tomohide, chief representative of JICA Bangladesh Office, also spoke the programme with Road Transport and Highways Division Secretary ABM Amin Ullah Nuri in the chair.
DMTCL is building the 21.26km metro rail from Uttara to Kamalapur at a cost of Tk 33,472 crore. The project deadline is December 2025.
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