Metro rail project: Deals inked with Chinese, Thai firms

The Bangladesh government has inked three deals with construction firms from China and Thailand to build the country’s first-ever metro rail project and help alleviate the chronic traffic congestion in Dhaka by 2020. Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited, a state-owned enterprise founded to implement the metro rail lines across the capital at a cost of Tk5,826 crore, signed the separate contract packages (CP2, CP3 and CP4) with Italian-Thai Development Public Company Ltd, a Thailand-based construction firm, and with Chinese state-owned Sinohydro Corporation Ltd. The deals were signed in a ceremony at Hotel Sonargaon on Wednesday presided over by Road Transport and Bridges minister, Obaidul Quader. Under the deals, the firms will build metro rail tracks, stations, viaducts, and a depot for the much anticipated 20.1km Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line that will connect north Dhaka to the south through 16 stations. According to the project, the package CP2 - worth Tk1,596 crore - is for civil and building work of the depot in Uttara; while CP3 and CP4 will concern the construction of metro rail tracks and elevated stations within a Tk4,230 crore budget. Metro Rail Project Director Mofazzel Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune that they had already started building stabling yards, maintenance houses and parking lots under CP1. Once implemented, the MRT system will run from Uttara to Motijheel and carry some 60,000 passengers per hour. The project is jointly financed by the Bangladesh government and Japan International Cooperation Agency. The partial trial operation of the MRT is expected to start by the end of 2019, while the commercial operation of the full system is expected by the end of 2020.