The Dhaka Metro, as distinct from the Dhaka Subway, is an approved metro rail systemunder construction in Dhaka, the capital and the busiest city of Bangladesh. Together with a separate BRT system it has been long called for to ease the extreme traffic jams and congestion that occur throughout the entire city on a daily basis, one of the heaviest in the world. It is a part of the 20-year long Strategic Transport Plan outlined by the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority, a governmental agency. Currently the metro rail system consists of one line referred to as the MRT Line-6, with other metro rail lines going to be added in the future. This 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 the reigning prime minister Sheikh Hasina. The civil work is being done by the Italian-Thai DevelopmentPublic Company Ltd. and Sinohydro Corporation Ltd. JV and a Tokyo-based construction company is developing the depot's land.
Overview
The deal for construction of the 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 a speed of, expected to drastically reduce the number of private cars on Dhaka's streets as well as their potentially 7-hour-long standstills. Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit is designed to 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 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. NKDM Association consists of: Nippon Koei Japan, Nippon Koei India, Delhi Metro Rail Corp, Mott MacDonald UK, Mott MacDonald India and Development Design Consultants.
Conception and Origin
In a view to implement Dhaka City's 20-year long Strategic Transport, Bangladesh Government invited Japan International Cooperation Agency 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 approved the project. A loan agreement between Bangladesh Government and JICA was signed in January 2013. The same year, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd., the implementing agency of MRT Line-6 project was formed. The General Consultant namely the NKDM Association commenced work from February 2014. In June 2013, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited was established by the Government to implement the Metro Rail Lines across the City. The project will be constructed under the supervision of 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.
Project Components, Dates and Progress
The project will be implemented under eight construction packages. The development components or construction packages include – CP-01, CP-02, CP-03, CP-04, CP-05, CP-06, CP-07 and CP-08. 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 Survey, Historical Importance/ Archeological Survey, Environmental Baseline Survey, Soil Electric Resistivity Survey and Utility Verification Survey. , 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, Tokyu Construction Ltd, is carrying out the depot land development work. Tokyu Construction Ltd will develop the depot on a 23.84-hectare of land during the construction period at the cost of around. He said the Pre-Qualification 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.
Network
In this Dhaka Metro Rail network, there will be six lines.
Route alignment
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.
