Expressing that the metro rail project is in progress, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader on Wednesday said the government is hoping to start the physical work on the mega project in February 2016.“Tender of six packages out of eight of the metro rail project from Uttara third phase to Motijheel Shapla Chattar has already been called,” he said, attending a workshop on ‘The Revision and Updating of the Strategic Transport Plan Draft Final Report’ held in the capital’s Cirdap auditorium.
The programme was jointly organised by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA).
Mentioning that the metro rail project is going on with the assistance of Japan, the Minister said the project is divided into eight packages and tenders for all the packages will be called by December.
Comparing Bangladesh with India, he said Dhaka as a capital city is not yet a planned one though Bangladesh is doing better than India in many socio-economic indices.
Dhaka is affected and overwhelmed by three types of problems- excessive population, traffic congestion and water logging – said Quader, adding that Strategic Transport Plan (STP) has to be adopted to resolve these problems.
Talking about revised STP, he said plenty of projects have been proposed in the revised STP such as five metro rail routes, two bus rapid transits (BRT), three ring roads surrounding Dhaka and six expressways.
The Minister also assured that metro rail route from Uttara to Farmgate will be completed within 2019 and Farmgate to Motijheel in 2020.
University of Asia Pacific VC Jamilur Reza Choudhury moderated the programme, while Road Transport and Bridges secretary MAN Siddique, Jica chief representative in Bangladesh Takao Toda and BUET teacher Prof Majharul Haque also spoke on the occasion.
