Bangladesh Launches First Metro Line In Dhaka With Japanese Aid

With Japanese aid, Bangladesh launched its first metro rail service on Wednesday (28 December) to improve commuting in Dhaka, the world's most congested city.

The service was opened by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was accompanied by recently appointed Japanese Ambassador Kiminori Iwama and Ichiguchi Tomohide, the top representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which supported the initiative.

The 20-kilometre portion of the urban train project was inaugurated by the Prime Minister, connecting the capital's northern region at Uttara area to Agargaon point, a temporary concentration of government buildings and hospitals in the centre of the city.

The lines were being extended to the Motijheel commercial sector in the south, cutting through the city to alleviate the severe traffic bottlenecks in Dhaka, one of the world's most densely inhabited cities.

The elevated railway network is expected to expand to over a hundred stations and six lines crisscrossing the city by 2030, with the project beginning operations on a segment of the first line built at a cost of $2.8 billion and mostly funded by Japanese money.

Opening the maiden journey of the Mass-Transit Rail service, Prime Minister Hasina said, “I thank everyone for this accomplishment…this metro rail is also another matter of pride for us.” She said that the first phase of the metro rail was inaugurated on Tuesday and the rest would be opened soon and “some 5.60 million people will use the trains every day when all the metro lines go into operation in 2030″.

The line is expected to carry 60,000 people each hour when it is fully operational and its opening has been keenly anticipated by commuters, reports Economic Times. 

The section's opening came as car-clogged highways proved to be a constant source of discomfort for Dhaka's 22 million residents, with some studies estimating that traffic congestion costs the capital's economy up to $3 billion per year in missed work time.