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in December next year.

At least, the service will be available between Uttara and Agargaon, a distance of 11.73km, by the end of next year, he said.

The Uttara-Agargaon section is part of the 20.10km metro route till Motijheel. The Mass Rapid Transit Line-6 or MRT-6, the country’s first metro rail, is being built at a cost of Tk 21,985 crore.

Five of the 24 trains to be used in the service have reached Dhaka from Japan while two are at the Mongla port. The rest will reach the depot gradually.

Testing of the trains inside the depot started on May 11 this year.

The overall performance tests may take six months and the integrity tests may continue for another three months, Quader said on August 29.

After that, five months of trial runs without passengers will be carried out before starting the commercial services, he added.

The original implementation period of the fast-track project was from July 2012 to June 2024.

Prime Minister Sheik Hasina inaugurated the physical work in June 2016.

She later directed the authorities to make the metro services on Uttara-Agargaon route operational by 2019, and Agargaon-Motijheel by 2020.

Failing to meet the deadline, the authorities in May 2019 said the services would be launched on December 16 this year to coincide with the golden jubilee of Bangladesh’s independence. But construction work lost pace amid the pandemic, forcing the authorities to extend the deadline again, officials said.

As of August, this year, the project made 69.43 percent overall progress, with the first phase Uttara-Agargaon witnessing 88.58 percent and second phase -- Agargaon-Motijheel -- seeing 67.91 percent progress.