PM lays foundation stone of first-ever metro rail project

DHAKA, Oct. 31 (nsnewswire) — Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has laid the foundation stone of the country’s first-ever metro rail project  scheduled to be implemented in three phases by 2022.
The foundation laying ceremony took place in Gazipur on the outskirts of capital Dhaka on Thursday evening.
Bangladesh in February this year signed a loan deal with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to finance the 20.1-km metro rail service project.
Of the total cost of 220 billion taka, JICA, a governmental agency of Japan which is responsible for the technical cooperation of its official development assistance programs, will provide about 165 billion taka, while the Bangladesh government will provide the rest.
In the first phase, 11 kilometers would be completed by 2019 and 4.4 kilometers by 2020. The remaining 4.7 kilometers was expected to be completed by 2022.
Japan in 2011 expressed its interest to fund Bangladesh’s first metro rail , which will transport 60,000 passengers an hour, after a feasibility study found overhead construction of Dhaka’s first mass transport system is possible.
An official had earlier said the overhead construction of metro rail can help the Bangladeshi government’s efforts to ease traffic gridlock in Dhaka which has only 436 km of 4-lane roads and 1,408 km of 2-lane roads.
The South Asian country’s capital city has been experiencing severe traffic jams, creating untold suffering for commuters. It is apprehended that traffic jam would be worsening in the future if steps are not taken immediately to ease the situation.