Bangladesh,Japan sign Dhaka metro rail
Bangladesh, Japan strike deal for Dhaka metro rail
With an endeavor to ease the traffic problems that create havoc mainly in the capital city, Bangladesh on Wednesday signed a loan deal with a Japanese development agency for construction of the country’s first-ever metro rail system.
Traffic in the country’s capital, home to 15 million people, is
among the slowest in the world with commuters spending three-to-four
hours in jams daily. A mix of 200,000 motor vehicles and another
half-million cycle-rickshaws clog the roads.
Officials said the proposed 20.1-kilometre ground and elevated
railway will stretch across Dhaka from north to south with 16 stations
and will ferry four million commuters every day, easing the jams
substantially.
The project will cost an estimated USD 2.8 billion, Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Bangladesh chief Takao Toda
said, adding that his agency will finance 85 per cent of the cost at an
interest rate of 0.01 per cent.
“The metro-rail will reduce travel time to 36 minutes (to cross
from north to south Dhaka), which now takes hours,” Toda said at the
signing of the first phase of the loan deal entailing USD 116.3 million
for consulting services.
The metro-rail construction will start in 2016 and end in 2021. The
government may seek investment from other donors for the remainder of
the cost.
The metro will be the impoverished country’s second-largest
infrastructure project after a USD 3-billion bridge project over the
river Padma.
The government says it plans to finance the bridge on its own.
Early this month, Bangladesh withdrew its request for World Bank
financing for the high-profile bridge project which has been dogged by
allegations of corruption involving top government officials.
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