The government yesterday appointed a joint venture of three Japanese and one Australian companies as consultants for enhancing the organisational capacity of the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited under which the much-talked-about metro rail will be constructed.
The cabinet committee on public purchase yesterday approved the Communication Ministry’s proposal for assigning the task to the Oriental Consultant Company, Katahira Engineering International, and Metro Development Company of Japan, and the SMEC of Australia.
After a meeting of the committee, Additional Secretary Nurul Karim told reporters that the firms had been appointed for Tk26.47 crore under package 1.
On January 28, the cabinet committee approved the draft of the metro rail act in order to constitute a company for the operation and management of the metro rail network in the capital, keeping special provision for land accusation.
Under the act, Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line 6 will be constructed from Uttara to Bangladesh Bank via Pallabi, Farmgate and Shahbagh with 16 stations on the route.
The construction of the 20km metro rail network from north of Uttara Model Town to Bangladesh Bank at Motijheel was expected to complete by 2019. Residents of Dhaka, world’s ninth densely populated city with 44,000 people living in every square-kilometre area, will be able to travel by metro rail in six years.
An official of the Communication Ministry claims that Dhaka will be free of its terrible traffic jams in six years with the opening of the first 20km metro rail services.
The proposal says the service would drastically reduce the number of private cars on Dhaka roads and thus decrease traffic congestion and environment pollution.
A survey by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) says the metro rail network will save Bangladesh an annual loss of Tk200 billion, equivalent to the country’s 1.5% GDP and 17% of the total tax revenue.
The metro rail will carry an estimated 60,000 passengers an hour to and from Uttara and Motijheel, significantly reducing the travel time from one end to the other to 36 minutes from at least two hours at present, it says.
Jica has provided Tk16,594 crore of the estimated Tk21,985 crore project cost as the government bears the rest.
In November last year, the government appointed a consortium led by Nippon Koei Company as consultant for the Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project to complete the project for Tk928.17 crore by 2024.
Communications Minister Obaidul Quader, who attended the cabinet committee meeting yesterday, told the Dhaka Tribune that the metro rail project had progressed as per the plan and its construction would start in time.
“The appointment of the consultants for the Dhaka Mass Transit Company is another step ahead towards the construction of the metro rail,” he said.
