Metro rail will run on Fridays from 20 September

The metro rail will run on Fridays from this week as per the demand of the passengers.

"Efforts are underway to run metro rail on weekly holidays from this Friday (20 September) following the decision of the ministry," said Mohammad Abdur Rouf, managing director (MD) of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL). 

According to the MD, the authorities also expect that the metro trains will stop at Kazipara station from Friday (20 September) as it is being ready for operational activities.

During the 'Complete Shutdown' programme of the antidiscrimination students movement, miscreants vandalised Mirpur-10 and Kazipara stations in the evening of 18 July. 

They vandalised everything, including the station's ticket vending machine and passenger entry punch machine, at the stations, which forced the authorities to keep the metro service closed for weeks. 

The metro rail started running again on 25 August, but the two stations remained closed. The DMTCL MD said the authorities have been relentlessly working to prepare the two stations for passengers. 

Earlier, the cost for repairing those stations was extimated at Tk 3 billion, but later a committee was formed to further scrutinise the repairing cost. 

"We hope that the repairing cost of those stations will reduce as we are procuring equipment from the local market," he said.

He further said that the final repair cost will be estimated after getting a report of the review committee.

According to the sources, the authorities have taken the initiative to renovate and open two closed stations as early as possible. As a result, Kazipara station can be opened on September 20, while Mirpur-10 station will take a few more months to become operational.

The DMTCL MD said, “Our adviser instructed us to run the metro rail on Fridays. Another challenge was the commissioning of Kazipara and Mirpur-10 stations. We worked on Kazipara station quickly. The station will be ready by 18 September."