Home ›› 30 Dec 2022 ›› Front
The first day of Dhaka Metro Rail’s commercial operation saw much enthusiasm from citizens of Dhaka, most of whom actually took the rides only out of thrill to gather first-hand experience of this unique service.
Hours before the gates opened at Uttara North and Agargaon stations yesterday, hundreds of people had queued up outside with friends and families, defying the cold and foggy winter morning.
They came from different parts of the capital city, some even from the adjoining districts to become a part of the history. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the service on Wednesday.
After the gates opened, security personnel let people enter in groups to avoid a huge crowd at the concourse hall on the second floor. There, passengers had to queue up as well to collect their tickets.
Metro rail staff, officials, volunteers and security personnel helped the passengers from the entrance to the exit at the destination station to avail of the service. Primarily, around 100 passengers were allowed on each trip, later it was increased to around 150 passengers per train.
The first train left the Uttara North Station at Diabari around 8am and it started the return journey soon after arriving at Agargaon within 20 minutes.
On the first day, a total of 3,855 passengers availed of the service spending Tk 2.74 lakh. The train completed 50 trips, 25 each from both ends without any major hitch, officials said. Of them, 3,857 bought single journey tickets while 99 people bought the MRT pass.
During the four hours of services at both ends, commuters faced some problems including technical glitches in ticket vending machines that slowed down operation. At one point, passengers were asked to collect tickets from the manned booths.
The hassles and waiting time, however, did not stop people from enjoying their first rides on the country’s first electric train. They cheered at the moment of boarding and soon after engaged in taking selfies, photos, and videos, and posted them on social media to share the joy with others.
There were still large gatherings of people at the Agargaon station waiting to enter when the service was already closed for the day around 12pm.
“I travelled on the metro in other countries, including India and China. Now we have the same service in Bangladesh. So, I brought my grandchildren to share the experience,” Abu Ahmed, a retired government official who came from Khilgaon, told The Business Post.
Office goer Saifuddin Kamal waited for over an hour in the queue that had stretched to the passport office at Agargaon, half a kilometre off the station. “I thought I would have to wait for like 30 minutes or so but the line is moving slowly.
“At one point, I even considered taking a bus to the office but then decided to wait because I didn’t want to miss this opportunity on the first day. I have informed my office that I might be late today,” he said with a smile.
Currently, metro trains are directly operating on the Agargaon-Uttara route every 10 minutes. All nine stations will be functional on the 11.73-km route by March 26 next year and the waiting time between the two available trains will decrease gradually.
According to the government’s plan, the Agargaon-Motijheel section of the MRT Line 6 will be inaugurated by December next year.
By 2025, the trains will operate from and to Kamalapur. A train will take only 38 minutes to reach Motijheel from Uttara. It will be able to carry 60,000 passengers per hour and nearly 5,00,000 per day.
The authorities have early commissioned the Uttara-Agargaon section considering public convenience.
The ticketing hassles
Five of the six vending machines at Agargaon station began malfunctioning soon after the services kicked off. Metro rail staff then diverted the queues to the manned ticket booths.
Besides, authorities had to stop the registration process for the issuance of permanent cards [MRT Pass] at the station as it was taking a long time.
Talking to The Business Post, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) Additional Project Director Abdul Matin Chowdhury said, “The ticketing system has seen some problems on the first day. Passenger pressure was high. It will take some time for them to understand the system. But everything will work properly soon.”
A project official at Agargaon station said that the ticket vending machines were not able to return the change while issuing the tickets against large notes, because there were not enough small notes in them.
Regarding the vending machine glitches, DMTCL Managing Director MAN Siddique said, “We instructed passengers not to insert notes bigger than Tk 100 in the vending machine for a single journey. But people were inserting Tk 500 and Tk 1,000 notes. Many people also used very old or torn notes. Due to these issues, the machines had trouble operating.”
“But hopefully, once people get used to the system, more people will take MRT passes and won’t waste time while buying tickets. Then more passengers will be able to travel,” he said.
He said that they wanted to carry 200 passengers in each train but later decided to carry fewer. “Since this is the first day, we needed to go slow for many reasons.”
He added that they will hold a review meeting of the journeys after a few days, address the issues, and finalise the schedule. “But for now, this schedule will remain unchanged. Trains will operate from 8am to 12pm.”
A press release issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges said that MRT cards can be now bought at Tk 500 each at Uttara North and Agargaon stations from 3pm to 9pm.
Passengers will need to fill up a registration form to buy them. The form is available on the DMTCL website — www.dmtcl.gov.bd.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) started a shuttle bus service from Agargaon and Uttara stations on Thursday. They are scheduled to leave the stations every 10 minutes with metro passengers. BRTC Depot Manager Nur e Alarm said they will provide the service from 8am to 12:30pm every day.
Metro fares reasonable: Quader
Talking to reporters on Thursday, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said that the metro fares are within the reach of people. “At least Tk 20 has to be paid when people ride on rickshaws. In that sense, the fare of metro rail is okay.”
“There are differences between the metro of Dhaka and Kolkata. Ours is better than those of Thailand and Indonesia. Dhaka’s metro rail looks good,” he said.
Once the MRT Line-6 becomes fully operational, city dwellers will have to pay Tk 100 to travel from Uttara to Motijheel as per kilometre fare has been fixed at Tk 5.
From Uttara to Agargaon, commuters will pay Tk 60. From Uttara North to Uttara Centre and South they will need to pay the minimum fare of Tk 20.
From Uttara North, the fares for Pallabi and Mirpur-11 stations are Tk 30, Mirpur-10 and Kazipara station Tk 40, and Shewrapara station Tk 50.
The MRT Line-6 project got approval in 2012 with a June 2024 deadline and a cost of Tk 21,985 crore. It was revised this year extending the line to Kamalapur and the project cost was increased to Tk 33,472 crore.
