Online Desk: Metro Rail’s Agargaon to Motijheel part will be opened by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday.

She will inaugurate the movement of the train and travel to Motijheel by metro rail.

Initially, metro rail on Agargaon-Motijheel section will operate for four hours with three stations: Farmegate, Bangladesh Secretariat and Motijheel. Rest of the stations will be opened in phases, said M.A.N. Siddique, managing director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL), while talking to reporters today at Probashi Kallyan Bhaban.

She is expected to inaugurate the construction work of the MRT Northern route too, he said.

Dhaka commuters can travel from Agargaon to Motijheel between 7:30 am and 11:30 am from November 5.

There are seven stations on the Agargaon to Motijheel part of Dhaka Metro Rail. These are: Bijoy Sarani, Farmgate, Karwan Bazar, Shahbagh, TSC, Press Club and Motijheel.

Once the Agargaon-Motijheel part of Metro Rail opens, commuters will be able to travel from Uttara to Motijheel in just 38 minutes — a miracle by Dhaka standards.

Initially, five trains will run from Agargaon to Motijheel every 15 minutes and the number of trains will be increased gradually by reducing the time interval.

The cost of the country’s first ever metro rail project stands at Tk 33,472 crore. Notably, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided Tk 19,719 crore in the form of a loan to support the project, while the Government of Bangladesh funded the remaining amount.

In the beginning, the estimated cost of this project was about Tk 21,000 crore. The cost has increased due to the construction of an additional 1.6 km section from Motijheel to Kamalapur, acquisition of new land for each station, and the addition of various new facilities.

The main construction work of the project started in 2017.

The prime minister formally inaugurated the Uttara-Agargaon section of MRT-6 line of the Metro Rail on December 28 last year.