Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday inaugurated a project on the construction of another Dhaka Metro Rail link (MRT Line-5) after opening the Agargaon-Motijheel section of the urban train network.
The 20-km long northern route will extend from Vatara to Hemayetpur in Savar, passing through key areas -- Gabtoli, Mirpur-10 and Gulshan.
The PM inaugurated the construction work at a ceremony around 3:30 pm on Saturday.
The Tk 41,239 crore project is expected to be completed by 2028.
Following the ceremony, the Prime Minister participated in an Awami League rally at Arambagh in the city’s Motijheel area.
For the northern route of the MRT Line-5, all necessary equipment and workforce have been assembled for soil and land development at the depot at Hemayetpur in Savar.
Aftab Hossain Khan, director of the project, said that the development work for the 99.25-acre depot area, a joint venture involving Japan's TAO Corporation and Bangladesh's Spectra Engineers Ltd, will now begin.
The project was approved in 2019. It consists of a 13.5 km underground section and a 6.5 km elevated section. It will encompass a total of 14 stations, with nine of them located underground. Around 10 lakh people could be able to travel by the MRT-5 every day.