Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday said to start commercial operation of metro rail in the capital would be possible by December 2019.
“The government has taken a project involving T21,985 crore to bring an end to traffic congestion in the capital,” he said this while talking to journalist after a view exchange meeting with the officials of the project at the MRTL 6 office in Eskaton of the capital.
Of the total amount of the project, the Bangladesh government will provide Tk5,390.48 crore and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Tk16,594.59 crore.
Noting that he visited the office to see progress of the project, the minister said objective of the metro rail project is to introduce safe, dependable, environment friendly and speedy mass transportation in the capital.
Quader said Rajuk had already handed over 5.69 hectares of land out of the total 22 hectares for building depot of the metro rail. The handing over of the rest of the land is under process, he said.
The length of the Metro Rail Transit Line 6 will be 20.1km with 16 stations. The 16 Metrorail stations will be at Uttara (north), Uttara (centre), Uttara (south), Pallabi, IMT, Mirpur 10, Kazipara, Taltala, Agargaon, Bijoy Smarani, Farmgate, Sonargaon, National Museum, Doel Chattar, Bangabandhu National Stadium and Bangladesh Bank.
The trains will run above the middle of roads and each of 24 sets of train takes less than 40 minutes to run the whole distance with an average speed of 100km. The metro rail will have the capacity of carrying 60,000 passengers per hour.
