Metro Rail to stop at Pallabi station from January 25
Pallabi station of metro rail will be operational from January 25. It will be the third station after Diabari and Agargaon to be open to public.
MAN Siddique, managing director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd, disclosed the information during a press briefing at the DMTCL's Eskaton office yesterday.
Currently, the metro rail runs between Diabari to Agargaon without any stops in between.
Trains will run from 8:30am to 12:30pm, and entries to the stations will be opened at 8:00am and closed at 12:00pm.
Additionally, the authority will try to relax the restriction on the number of passengers from 200 in order to accommodate more commuters.
The official said the decisions were made following the first review meeting on Sunday held after 10 days of metro rail operation.
During the first 10 days, around 90,000 passengers used the service, earning the authority around Tk 88 lakh, the DMTCL MD said.
He added that 7,250 multiple-use MRT passes and 83,000 single-journey cards were sold during this time.
On December 28, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated MRT Line-6 from Uttara to Agargaon, which opened to the public the following day.
Asked about the fully-fledged operation, MAN Siddique said they were still hopeful about meeting their target of having all nine stations of the section operational by March 26.
He went on to say that they already had enough resources to execute the fully-fledged operation but decided to gradually increase the number of stations so people can get habituated to the new mode of transport.
The DMTCL would need Tk 1,000 crore annually to cover the operational and depreciation costs, and to pay the loan instalments.
To achieve this goal, it needs to earn Tk 3 crore per day, which it anticipates it will be able to do once the entire line is up and running.
However, the official said that fare revenue would cover only 65 percent of the cost, with the remaining 35 percent coming from station plazas and transit-oriented development (TOD).
TOD is a type of urban development that maximises the amount of residential, business, and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. In doing so, TOD aims to increase public transport ridership by reducing the use of private cars and by promoting sustainable urban growth.
Meanwhile, the construction work for the extension of the metro rail from Motijheel to Kamalapur started on Saturday, he added.
On January 2, the DMTCL sent an invitation to the prime minister to inaugurate the physical work of MRT Line-1, the country's first underground metro rail, in the last week of this month.