Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and also one of the most crowded cities in the world, has got its first-ever metro rail. A section of the urban rail project, known as Line 6, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday. The line connects the northern zone of Dhaka to a hub of government offices and hospitals in the middle for now.
Traffic congestion is a major concern for the population of Dhaka. According to media reports, it wastes about 3.2 million working hours each day and costs Bangladesh’s economy billions of dollars every year.
On the occasion, PM Hasina hailed the opening of the metro rail as a crowning achievement. The metro rail “added another feather” to Bangladesh’s cap and is “another milestone in development”, she said. According to media reports, PM Hasina further said that the metro rail heralds the beginning of a new age in Bangladesh with high-speed trains running on electricity which is environmentally safe.
- The elevated metro rail is part of Bangladesh’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) which is being implemented in phases. The MRT network in Dhaka is planned to be 129 kilometres out of which 61 km will be underground
- The first metro train is running between Diabari to Agargaon. It will be open for public usage from Thursday, December 29
- Initially, the train will run daily for 4 hours from 8 am to 12 noon between Uttara and Agargaon stations without any stoppage. In the beginning, 10 sets of trains with six coaches each will run from Uttara to Agargaon
- The metro rail will carry 60 thousand passengers per hour and 5 lakh passengers per day. The frequency of the trains will be 4 minutes, media reports stated
- The metro rail has been constructed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which is reportedly providing 165.95 billion taka out of the total 219.85 billion taka approved for the project