Metro rail construction to start in Q1 of 2017: Project director

With soil examination ongoing, construction of much talked about metro rail in the capital is now set to commence by the first quarter of 2017, said project director.

Metro rail is aimed at easing perennial traffic congestion in the capital and providing an improved, faster and comfortable means of public transportation.

"We intend to sign contracts with the qualified bidders by the end of 2016 for construction of the 20-km long elevated overpass on which the rail track will be set up," said Md Mofazzal Hossain, the project director.

The entire alignment stretching from Uttara third phase to Bangladesh Bank will be divided into four segments he said. Aspiring bidders would be called by this July for pre-qualification and tender for final hiring would be floated by the end of this year.        

The consultants have already submitted the basic design of the metro rail system, fashioned as Mass Rapid Transit line-6, and the soil test is required to finalise the detailed design and construction of metro stations and elevated viaduct, said Hossain.

After Uttara, Mirpur and Khamarbari, boreholes are now being made to extract samples for geo-technical examination at Farmgate and Karwan Bazar.   

Headed by the communications secretary, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd, which will own and operate the metro rail upon completion, is studying the basic design on the basis of which consultants will prepare the detailed design, he added.

Under Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project, official name of the metro scheme, Tk 328 crores have been paid to Rajuk for 22 hectares of land in Uttara third phase, where depot (maintenance and resting place for metro), workshop, operation control centres, electrical building, washing plant and training centre will be built, said Hossain.

"We are soon going to float a tender for land development for depot and other facilities site and another tender by end of this year for construction of the structures," he said.   

Replying to a question, Hossain said, "We follow the example of Delhi Metro as a successful model in the region."

According to Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), 14 trains will operate every three minutes and carry 60,000 passengers every hour on both directions, drastically cutting the number of private cars on roads.

The metro rail will have 16 stations through Uttara, Mirpur, Rokeya Sarani, Khamarbari, Farmgate, Sonargaon Hotel, Shahbagh, Doel Chattar and Topkhana road.        

The first tender for pre-qualification to procure 24 locomotives, 144 coaches and equipment for the depot was floated early January. 

The metro will save Bangladesh from an annual economic loss of Tk 200 billions, equivalent to 1.5 percent of the country's gross domestic production, according to Jica's immediate past country representative.

According to the communications minister, the Tk 22,000-crore (US $2.5-billion) project will be completed by 2019.

A consortium of consultants led by Nippon Koei Ltd of Japan and including Nippon Koei India Ltd, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, Mott MacDonald Ltd, India, and Mott MacDonald Ltd, UK, and Development Design Consultants Ltd Bangladesh was hired in November 2013.

It will prepare the detailed design, supervise construction work and help manage the project with Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority as its implementing agency.

Japanese government will lend Tk 16,600 crores while Bangladesh government will bear the rest.