Metro rail to remain closed for two days during Eid

Metro rail will remain closed tomorrow, Thursday, on the occasion of Eid-ul Fitr. The day after Eid-ul Fitr is Friday, the weekly holiday of this train service.  And so, metro rail will remain closed for two consecutive days during Eid.

On Wednesday morning, deputy manager of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL), Nazmul Islam Bhuiyan, informed Prothom Alo of the closure. He said, as announced earlier, metro rail will remain closed on Eid. It was closed last year on Eid too.

Nazmul Islam Bhuiyan said, Thursday is the Eid holiday and Friday is the weekly holiday and so metro rail will be closed for two days. It will resume operations on Saturday as per schedule.

On the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, 240,000 to 245,000 people would travel by metro rail daily on average. This was around 295,000 before Ramadan. From 16 Ramadan the metro rail service was extended by one hour and the number of commuters increased.

Over the past five days, the average number of daily passengers was 290,000. On certain days the number even reached 300,000.

The metro rail authorities had earlier said that metro rail's own staff was running the train service. They had lesser employees than normal and so if metro rail was kept operative during Eid, almost everyone would have to forego Eid and remain busy with work.

According to the authorities, there would not likely be many commuters for metro rail before the afternoon and so according to the present schedule, the number of passengers would not be as expected for over a hundred trains. This would push up costs too.