Construction of the northern route of Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line-5 will begin in July.
In this regard, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) signed an agreement with the contractor for the work of the first package on Tuesday.
During the construction of MRT Line-5 northern route, land development work will be done first in the depot area. The cost has been estimated at Tk 1189 crore.
Japanese company TOI and Bangladesh’s Spectrum will act as the contractor for the land development of this route in a joint venture. The signing of the agreement was held at the metro rail depot located in Uttara’s Diabari on Tuesday.
DMTCL authorities said that the construction of MRT Line-5 North
line will be completed through 10 packages. Out of this, the process of appointing contractors for package CP-1 (land development of depot area) has been completed.
The construction of Line-5 can be started with the inauguration in July.
A part of this route will pass under Gabtali, Mirpur-10, Kachukhet, Banani, Notun Bazar road. And the Bhatara section from Hemayetpur to Aminbazar and Natun Bazar will be built over the road. The length of the line including underground and aerial is 20 km.
Out of this, 13.50 kilometers will be underground and 6.50 kilometers will be elevated.
MRT-5 will have 9 stations in the underground section and five stations in the upper section. Among them, there will be underground stations at Gabtali, Darus Salam, Mirpur-1, Mirpur-10, Mirpur-14, Kachukhet, Banani, Gulshan-2 and Natun Bazar respectively.
The government plans to complete the project by 2028. Its construction cost is estimated at Tk 41238 crores.
JICA is also providing loan assistance for this project. The government will give Tk 12121.50 crore.
The government plans to build a network of six metro rails under DMTCL to plan, survey, design, finance, construct, operate and maintain metro rail as a state-of-the-art public transport for decongesting and improving the environment in Dhaka city and surrounding areas.
According to the action plan, the first metro rail section from Uttara North to Kamalapur, 21.26 km long and having 17 stations, has already been inaugurated. The government wants to inaugurate the section from Agargaon to Motijheel next December and the section from Motijheel to Kamalapur in June 2025.
By 2026, the detailed design and land acquisition of the depot has been completed with the aim of constructing MRT Line-1 with a total length of 31.24 km and 21 stations, including 19.87 km underground from Kamalapur to the airport and 11.37 km elevated from New Bazaar to Pitalganj depot.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the construction of the country’s first underground metro rail MRT Line-1 on February 2 this year.
At present, the construction of the land development package of the depot is going on. Tender processing activities for other packages are under implementation at various stages. This will be the country’s first underground metro rail.