BE Magazine

24
COVER STORY
Mass Rapid Transit Line-6
On 20 February 2013 GoB signed a loan deal with
JICA for construction of the 20.1 kilometers MRT
Line-6 costing $2.8 billion. JICA will finance 85% of
the project cost as a soft loan at an interest rate of
0.01%.
The same year, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd.
(DMTC) was formed, to be the implementing agency
of the MRT Line-6 project. MRT Line-6 is being
constructed in the supervision of DMTCL under
the jurisdiction of Road Transport and Highway
Division, Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges.
The entire metro rail route and its 16 stations will
be elevated. Only the depot will be on the ground
level. Once complete, the metro rail services will be
operated by DMTCL.
The metro rail would be noise-free, with noise
barriers and vibration-free lines. The cars would be
made of stainless steel and aluminium alloy. Every
metro rail train will consist of six air-conditioned
spacious cars. Each train will hold up to 1800
passengers. With 56 trains in service, there will be a
train in every four minutes at each of the 16 stations,
heading in both directions. A city commuter will
travel between Motijheel and Uttara North in less
than 40 minutes, at an average speed of 100 km/h.
Twenty four trains will together transport 60,000
passengers every hour in both directions.
The entire project is being implemented under
eight separate contracts, including four for building
the 20km elevated overpass. The fifth consists
of the construction of viaduct and stations from
Agargaon to Karwan Bazar and the sixth on similar
construction from Karwan Bazar to Motijheel. The
seventh consists of electrical and mechanical work.
The eighth consists of the procurement of 144 metro
rail cars.
A consortium of consultants was hired in
November 2013 for general consultancy. Nippon
Koei Ltd of Japan is leading the consortium with
partners Nippon Koei India Ltd, Delhi Metro Rail
Corporation Ltd, Mott MacDonald Ltd India, Mott
MacDonald Ltd UK, and Development Design
Consultants Ltd Bangladesh. The consortium has
prepared the metro’s detailed design and takes care
of construction supervision, procurement support,
and management of the work.
Authorities of the Dhaka Metro Rail project signed
three contracts with two companies on 3 May 2017
for the civil construction work at the Uttara depot
and building elevated rail viaducts from north Uttara
to Agargaon. According to one of the contracts, a
joint venture of Italian-Thai Development Public
Company and Sinohydro Corporation is going to
execute the Tk 1,595 crore civil constructions at the
metro rail depot. The other two contracts (package-3
and -4) worth Tk 4,230 crore were signed with Ital-
Thai for the construction of 10km-long elevated
viaducts and nine stations between north Uttara to
Agargaon. Contractors were given work orders on
August 1, 2017.
DMTCL signed three more agreements with Chinese
and Thai firms on 13 September 2017. The separate
contract packages (CPs) including CP-2, CP-3 and
CP-4 worth over Tk 58.26 billion ($719 million)
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December, 2019