Metro rail among three mega projects to be inaugurated next year: Quader

The first-ever metro rail services in the country on line-6 is going to be launched by December 2022, said road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader on Sunday.

“Prime minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the three mega projects -- Padma Bridge, Karnaphuli Tunnel and Metro Rail Line-6 in the next year,” he said while inaugurating the test operation of the metro rail for reassessing its performances.

The overall work of metro rail line-6 will be completed in the next six months. Overall 62.29 per cent work of the project has been completed by 31 August while 88 per cent work of from Uttara-Mirpur area has been completed, he said.

The experimental run of metro rail over viaduct was launched around 11:45am from Uttara Metro Rail depot.

NM Siddique, managing director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited, representative from the Japanese Embassy in Bangladesh and representatives from JAICA and Metro Rail Advisory Organisation were present during the inaugural programme.

Earlier, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd. on Friday put a train of six coaches on a trial operation on Diya Bari-Mirpur route.

Siddique told UNB that they put six couches on a trial run from Diya Bari to Mirpur in the morning to check the track from Uttara to Agargaon.

Four sets of trains—each comprising six air-conditioned coaches—have already reached Bangladesh from Japan and five more sets are scheduled to arrive by September next.

There will be a total of 144 coaches for the 24 train sets that will run on a 21km-route from Uttara to Kamalapur Railway Station via Agargaon, Farmgate, Dhaka University campus and Motijheel. There will be a total of 17 stations, according to project documents.