Metro rail will stop at Dhaka University and Bijoy Sarani stations on its Uttara-Motijheel route from December 13.
However, the duration on the Agargaon-Motijheel section will remain the same from 7:30am to 11:30am. After 11:30am, train movement stopped for the day on the Motijheel-Agargaon route but keeps operation on the Uttara-Agargaon section till 8:30pm.
Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) Managing Director MAN Siddique made the announcement on the development of MRT-6 at a press conference in the capital on Thursday.
“We had planned to open all the stations within three months when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the second phase of the metro rail's Agargaon to Motijheel part on November 4,” he said.
Three stations on this section are now operational---Farmgate, Secretariat and Motijheel and two will be added on December 13. The rest two--Karwan Bazar and Shahbagh stations will be opened to passengers by January next year and after that the authorities will expand the operation time, he said.
“After we make operational all of the stations, we will need to bring a massive change to our operational software,” he added.
DMCTL has got the site of Shahbagh and Karwan Bazar stations late for construction. After the entry and exit facilities at these stations are ready, he said, these two will be inaugurated.
The managing director further said that the authorities concerned will change colour of the single journey ticket soon.
The cost of the country’s first-ever metro rail project stands at Tk 33,472 crore. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided Tk 19,719 crore in the form of a loan to support the project, while the government of Bangladesh funded the remaining amount.
In the beginning, the estimated cost of this project was about Tk 21,000 crore. The cost has increased due to the construction of an additional 1.6-km section from Motijheel to Kamalapur, acquisition of new land for each station, and the addition of various new facilities.
The main construction work of the project started in 2017. The prime minister inaugurated the first phase of the first-ever metro rail from Uttara to Agargaon on December 28 last year.
