The Dhaka Metro (Bengali: ঢাকা মেট্রো) is an approved metro rail system under construction in Dhaka, the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. Together with a separate BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system it has been long called for to solve the extreme amount of traffic jams and congestion
that occur throughout the entire city on a daily basis, among the
heaviest in the world. It is a part of the 20-year long Strategic
Transport Plan (STP) chalked out by the Government's Transport
Coordination Authority (DTCA).
Currently the metro rail system consists of one line referred to as the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) Line-6, with other metro rail lines being added in the future. This Wikipedia article focuses mainly on Dhaka MRT Line-6.
The Dhaka Metro Rail Line-6 consists of 16 elevated stations each
of 180m long and 20.1 km of electricity powered light rail tracks. MRT
Line-6. All of Line-6, save for the depot, as well as some of its
accompanying BRT, will be elevated above current roads primarily above
road medians to allow traffic flow underneath, with stations also
elevated.
Construction began on 26 June 2016 with an inauguration ceremony presided over by Sheikh Hasina. The civil work is being done by the Italian-Thai Development
Public Company Limited and Sinohydro Corporation Limited JV and a Tokyo
based construction company is developing the depot’s land.
The deal for construction of the 20.1 kilometres (12.5 mi) Line 6, costing $2.8 billion, was signed by the Government of Bangladesh with the Japan International Cooperation Agency on 20 February 2013.
This first route, originally projected to start from uttara, a northern
suburb of Dhaka, to Sayedabad, in the south of the capital, was eventually extended north to Uttara and truncated south to Motijheel.
Each train will hold up to 1800 passengers. With 56 trains to be
in service by 2019, Dhaka Metro is projected to serve more than 60,000
passengers per hour by 2021, with wait times of approximately 4 minutes.
The entire route will be able to be travelled in less than 40 minutes
at an average speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), expected to drastically reduce
the number of private cars on Dhaka's streets as well as their
potentially 7-hour-long standstills.
During an interview with a local news paper, Md Mofazzel Hossain,
Project Director of Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project said
"The metro rail would be noise-free, with noise barriers and
vibration-free lines, and the cars would be made of stainless steel and
aluminium alloy". The system plans to use magnetic contactless Integrated Circuit Ticketing commonly also known as smart cards. Platform screening door (PSD) barriers used in the platform level will increase safety and increase efficiency.
When the service is in full operation, trains of six
air-conditioned spacious cars will arrive every four minutes going each
way at each of the 16 stations.
The project is being managed by the Communications Ministry's
Dhaka Transport Co-ordination Authority, and a consortium of foreign as
well as Bangladeshi firms known as NKDM Association is acting as General
Consultant (GC). NKDM Association consists of: Nippon Koei Japan,
Nippon Koei India, Delhi Metro Rail Corp (India), Mott MacDonald UK,
Mott MacDonald India and Development Design Consultants (local
consultant-Bangladesh).
In a view to implement Dhaka City's 20-year long Strategic Transport
(STP), Bangladesh Government invited Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA) to conduct a primary survey and feasibility study on the
transport system of Dhaka back in 2009–2010. In 2012 the Government’s
Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the
project. A loan agreement between Bangladesh Government and JICA was
signed in January 2013. The same year, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd.
(DMTC), the implementing agency of MRT Line-6 project was formed. The
General Consultant (GC) namely the NKDM Association (See above)
commenced work from February 2014.
In June 2013, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTC) was
established by the Government to implement the Metro Rail Lines across
the City.
The project will be constructed under the supervision of (DMTCL) under
the jurisdiction of Road Transport and Highway Division, Ministry of
Road Transport and Bridges, Government of Bangladesh. Once complete,
metro rail services would be operated by DMTCL.
During an interview with daily sun, Md Mofazzel Hossain, Project
Director of Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project said that the
project will be implemented under eight construction packages (CP). The
development components or construction packages include – CP-01 (Depot
Land Development), CP-02 (Depot Civil & Buildings), CP-03, CP-04
(Viaduct & Stations, Uttara-Agargaon), CP-05, CP-06 (Viaduct &
Stations, Agargaon-Motijheel), CP-07 (Electro-Mechanical Systems) and
CP-08 (Rolling Stock & Depot Equipment).
Utility relocation from Mirpur-10 to Agargaon was planned to
start August 2016, Other surveys have already been completed during the
period of 2014 – October 2016 as mentioned by the project director
Topographic Survey, Traffic Survey, Geotechnical Survey, Right of Way
(ROW) Survey, Historical Importance/ Archeological (HIA) Survey,
Environmental Baseline (EBL) Survey, Soil Electric Resistivity (SER)
Survey and Utility Verification Survey.
As of May 2015, soil testing for the line was completed, with construction for the first section having begun on 26 June 2016,
and construction for the second section planned to begin in July 2017,
for planned public operation by the end of 2019 and sometime in 2020,
respectively.
A Japanese firm Tokyo Construction Ltd, is carrying out the depot
land development work (CP-01). Tokyu Construction Ltd will develop the
depot on a 23.84-hectare of land during the construction period at the
cost of around ৳5.67 billion
(US$73 million). He said the Pre-Qualification (PQ) of CP-02 has
already done and 15 firms are qualified for this. Tender for CP-02 is
already floated and the last date of the submission is 6 September this
year. While asked about CP-03 and CP-04, he said PQ process has been
done on 20 April this year. Tender has been invited and the last date of
submission is 8 August 2016. But the date may be extended, he
mentioned.
Tentative alignments have been decided upon for the three initial metro
lines. Only Line 6, as of 27 June 2016, has a definite station layout:
| Uttara North | ||||
| Uttara Centre | ||||
| Uttara South | ||||
| Pallabi | ||||
| Mirpur 11 | ||||
| Mirpur-10 | ||||
| Kazipara | ||||
| Shewrapara | ||||
| Agargaon | ||||
| Bijoy Sarani | ||||
| Farmgate | ||||
| Karwan Bazar | ||||
| Shahbag | ||||
| Dhaka University | ||||
| Bangladesh Secretariat | ||||
| Motijheel | ||||
The project is worth for appreciation.
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