Metro to roll up to Motijheel November 5

Commuters will be able to take the train from Uttara to Motijheel starting November 5, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurates the Agargaon-Motijheel section of the country's first elevated metro line.

To facilitate the inauguration programme regular metro rail services will remain suspended on November 4, said MAN Siddique, managing director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited, yesterday.

On November 5, trains will start operating between Agargaon and Motijheel every 10 minutes from 7:30am to 11:30am, while the Uttara-Agargaon route will remain open from 7:30am to 8:30pm.

Currently, trains operate on the Uttara-Agargaon section from 8:00am to 8:30pm.

Initially, three stations will be opened on the Agargaon-Motijheel route. They are located at Farmgate, the Secretariat (Jatiya Press Club), and Motijheel.

The remaining four stations will open over the next three months, and then the hours of operation will slowly be extended.

Siddique said it takes 17 minutes to travel from Uttara to Agargaon on the metro and it will take 14 minutes to get from Agargaon to Motijheel initially, meaning the full trip from Uttara to Motijheel will take around 31 minutes.

"Once all 16 stations between Uttara and Motijheel become operational, the journey will take around 38 minutes," he added.

He said around 90,000 people use the metro daily, adding that, the number of users is expected to reach 500,000 once the line from Uttara to Motijheel is fully functional.

Currently, 25-27 percent of metro rail users use permanent passes, while the majority travel with one-time passes. "However, the number of permanent pass users is increasing," he added.

On November 4, the prime minister will inaugurate the Agargaon-Motijheel section at 2:30pm from the Agargaon station. Then she will take the metro to Motijheel for another inaugural programme at the Motijheel station.

On the day, she will also inaugurate the construction of MRT Line-5 (northern route), which will be a 20km line from Hemayetpur to Bhatara via Gabtoli, Mirpur-10, Gulshan. The deadline for the Tk 41,239 crore project is 2028.

During a visit to the Motijheel station yesterday, this correspondent found people were busy decorating the station and preparing the stage for the inauguration programme.

The Uttara-Agargaon section of the country's first metro-rail line, formally known as MRT Line-6, opened in December last year.

Since then, the demand for trains on the Agargaon-Motijheel route has increased as the major catchment area runs from Mirpur to Motijheel.

The government is implementing the fast-track project to build the 21.26km elevated metro line from Uttara to Kamalapur at a cost of Tk 33,472 crore. The project's deadline is December 2025.