By Syed Shukur Ali Shuvo

DHAKA, Feb 10, 2025 (BSS) – The underground Metrorail services is expected to be launched in 2028 as the construction works were progressing fast aiming to reduce further the capital’s notorious traffic jams, officials said here today.

    “Works are underway in full swing to construct the mostly underground rail services from the (Hazrat Shahjalal International) Airport to Kamalapur and Notun Bazar to Pitalganj depot of Purbachal,” Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) managing director M Abdur Rouf told BSS.

   He said the proposed route have two parts with Notun Bazar to Purbachal being the extended or supplementary one while currently works were underway to relocate utility services on Kuril-Norda to Kamalapur, visibly the most crammed part of the route called MRT Line 1.

   According to DMTCL the length of the two routes is 31.241-kilometre.

   Rouf said they were taking to consideration of various stakeholders to minimize inconveniences of particularly the residents in the neighborhoods on the path of the route noting their problems and suggestions.

   “We held meetings with the stakeholders and Road Transport and Bridges Ministry Adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan to quicken the construction works, causing least possible public sufferings,” he said.

   The top DMTCL official sought residents’ cooperation particularly for the relocation of utility services on Kuril-Narda road.

   DMTCL officials said they by now nearly completed 90 percent of the land development works for the MRT Line-1 and its depot on 88.71 acres.

   They said task of MRT Line 1 is being done under 12 packages, 11 of which completed the tendering process, and the final package will be completed next week. 

   DMTCL officials said construction works of both the main and the supplementary routes were launched on February 2, 2023, on completion of the two-year feasibility study in 2018.

   The entire MRT Line-1 project is being implemented in 12 packages at a cost of Taka 53,977 crore while the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is providing Tk. 39,450 crore as project assistance and the government was bearing the rest of the amount from its exchequer.

   Out of 31.241-kilometre MRT Line-1, nearly 19.872 kilometers will go through underground with 14 underground stations while the rest 11.369-kilometer of the route would be elevated lines.

   The Airport-Kamalapur route will have 12 underground stations and the two others will be built in the supplementary Nutun Bazar-Purbachal route. 

  They said the existing metro rail service from Uttara to Kamalapur called MRT 6 Line is 20-kilometre in length while under a mega plan a 140-kilometer metro rail network, nearly half of it to be underground, would be built covering Dhaka city and its adjacent areas by 2030.

   The officials said the planned network consisting of six lines was expected to serve some 50 lakh people covering 129 kilometres area of the city through more than 100 stations.

   According to the DMTCL officials works on two other MRT lines were also underway.