Metro rail to run on Fridays from 20 September

Metro rail will run on Fridays from 20 September as per passengers' demand, said Mohammad Abdur Rouf, managing director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL).

"Efforts are underway to run metro rail on weekly holidays from this Friday following the decision of the ministry," Rouf told BSS today.

He said the authorities also expect that the metro trains will stop at Kazipara station from 20 September as it is being ready for operational activities.

During the "Complete Shutdown" programme of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, a group of people vandalised Mirpur-10 and Kazipara stations in the evening of 19 July.

They vandalised everything, including the station's ticket vending machine and passenger entry punch machine at the stations, which forced them to keep the two stations closed for 37 days.

The metro operations resumed on 25 August, but the two stations remained closed.

The DMTCL managing director said the authorities have been relentlessly working to prepare the two stations for passengers.

Earlier, the estimated cost for repairing those stations was Tk300 crore, but later a committee was formed to further scrutinise the repairing cost.

"We hope that the repair cost of these stations will reduce as we are procuring equipment from the local market," he said.

He further said the final repair cost will be estimated after getting the report of the review committee.

According to relevant sources, due to the authorities' initiatives, Kazipara station can be opened on 20 September, while Mirpur-10 station will take a few more months to become operational.