Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary

Realising their imminent failure to meet the deadline, the authorities are planning to launch the Uttara-Agargaon metro rail service by December next year.

Until recently, the plan was to launch the country’s first metro rail service in December this year. But physical work was delayed by the pandemic.

“It is of note that activities are underway through DMTCL [Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd] to start passenger transport in the Uttara-Agargaon section of MRT [Mass Rapid Transit] Line-6 by December 2022,” Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal told parliament in his budget speech on Thursday.

DMTCL, the implementing agency of the fast-track project, said the government, not the DMTCL, would fix the date to launch metro rail services.

“We believe that it’s possible to achieve what the [finance] minister said [in his budget speech] unless the pandemic causes severe deterioration of the situation. We are trying our best,” MAN Siddique, managing director at DMTCL, told The Daily Star yesterday.

MRT Line-6, the country’s first metro rail system, is being built between the capital’s Uttara and Motijheel at a cost of Tk 22,000 crore.

Once complete, the metro rail -- with 16 stations -- will be able to carry 60,000 people an hour, reducing travel time between Uttara and Motijheel to around 40 minutes. It now takes about two hours to travel the distance on a regular day.