Metro Rail's Shewrapara and Uttara South stations open to public

Two more metro rail stations - Shewrapara and Uttara South - under the first phase of MRT-6 were inaugurated today.

Metro Rail will now run for six hours instead of four from 5 April. 

The stations were open to the public from 8am on Friday and the metro rails started stopping at these stations from 8:30am.

The rush of people was considerably low at Shewrapara as most came to experience the Metro Rail rather than travel to work as it is a holiday today.

With the opening of the two stations, all nine stations on the 21.6km route, from Uttara to Agargaon, have come under operation.

Currently, metrorail service is available on the route from 8:30am to 12:30pm. The new schedule will be from 8am to 2pm.

"Around 92%-95% of work of the Agargaon to Motijheel section has been completed and the rest of the work is expected to be finished by July," Dhaka Mass Transit Company Managing Director MAN Siddique said at an event at his office in the capital on Thursday (30 March).

"We will conduct performance tests for this section after July and metrorail operation on the Uttara-Motijheel route is set to begin in December," he added.

On 28 December last, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the first-ever elevated metro rail, setting a milestone in the country's communication history. Since then, the authorities have earned approximately Tk6.20 crore carrying some 10.77 lakh passengers.

However, the cost for the service for the period was Tk7.33 crore, according to MAN Siddique.

"The lion's share of expenses went to electricity bills, while the rest went to salary and honorarium of staff," he added.