Parliament yesterday passed the Metro Rail Act, 2015 that aimed at easing traffic congestion and ensuring fast, improved public transportation in the capital. The bill was passed by a voice vote after Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader placed it before the House with Deputy Speaker Fazle Rabbi Miah in the chair. Quader told parliament that the first tender for the construction of t
he 20km metro rail route would be invited on January 31. Two more tenders would be floated in February and five others in 2015. The minister said the construction work of the metro rail project would begin in January next year and was expected to end by 2019, which is two years before its schedule. “Metro rail service would be introduced in Bangladesh for the first time. A specific law was needed for the construction of the rail and maintenance of its operation,” he told parliament before the passage. Under the act, Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line-6 route will be constructed from Uttara to Bangladesh Bank via Pallabi, Farmgate and Shahbagh. It will cover 16 stations on its route. Six districts --Dhaka, Gazipur, Munshiganj, Narsingdi, Manikganj and Narayanganj--will come under the purview of the law. Advertisement Quader said eventually MRT lines 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 would be constructed to connect the entire capital with its adjacent districts. Japan has approved $2.1 billion in soft loan for the $2.7 billion project. The three-year delay has increased the project cost to $2.7 billion from $1.7 billion. According to a Jica study, the trains will operate every three minutes and carry 60,000 passengers an hour. The metro rail project, the country's second largest infrastructure project after the $2.9 billion Padma bridge project, has faced complexities in the last few years over modification of routes following objections from the air force and to avoid overlapping with the Gulistan-Jatrabari flyover. As per law, a metro rail traveler will be fined ten times of the respective ticket price if found without ticket or legal permission to board the service. Anyone obstructing metro rail operation will face five years of imprisonment or a Tk 50,000 fine. Besides, there is Tk 1 crore penalty and 10 years of imprisonment for operating metro rail without license. In November last year, the cabinet approved the draft of the metro rail act.
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