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Published : 25 Aug 2024, 10:25 AM
Dhaka’s metro rail service has resumed in Dhaka on Sunday after it was suspended for over a month.
The first train on Sunday left the Uttara North station at 7:10am for Motijheel. The other trains also ran on time.
On Sunday, Md Zakaria, additional director of the Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project, said the trains were running according to their schedules and no problem was reported so far.
The resumption of metro rail service has eased the suffering of commuters who are once again able to disentangle from Dhaka’s regular traffic congestion.
A huge crowd of passengers thronged the Mirpur-11 and Shewrapara stations on Sunday morning.
“I go to Motijheel regularly on the metro. I got pretty used to it. I faced a lot of difficulty since it was shut. Travelling by bus takes more time and also there are traffic jams. Now that trains have resumed service, our suffering has eased,” said Sheikh Md Belal Hossain, a resident of Mirpur-10.
"The resumption of metro rail service has brought back life to our neighbourhood. Moreover, it brought some misinformation to light. It was said that resuming metro rail service would take a long time. Now we see that it was misinformation,” said Ashraful Islam, a resident of Senpara.
Arifa Islam, a worker at a private company, was travelling from Shewrapara station to Motijheel. "The metro rail arrives at the scheduled time and we can reach our destinations in time. Travelling by bus would have taken longer and would have been more trouble. At times, I was late for the office. Now everything is back to normal,” she said.
The Mirpur-10 and Kazipara stations, damaged during the recent violence, will still remain closed. This led to larger crowds at the Mirpur-11 and Shewrapara stations.
“Passengers suffered daily on this route [due to the closure], but now we are relieved. But it’s still a hassle to come to Mirpur-11 as our station is still closed.” said Sunil Sarkar, who lives in Mirpur-6.
The metro rail was attacked, vandalised, and torched on Jul 18 amid the protests calling for reforms to the quota system for government jobs. The following day, there were attacks on the Kazipara and Mirpur-10 stations as well as the Pallabi and Mirpur-11 stations. Dhaka’s first metro rail service has been suspended since then.
Meanwhile, 10 to 20 staff members of the metro rail halted their work on Aug 8 demanding a ‘non-discriminatory’ salary structure after the fall of the Hasina government. They returned to work last Tuesday.
On Aug 11, officials involved in running the metro rail said that before service was resumed it would be scrutinised and a week of testing would be done starting on Monday or Tuesday. An order was given to resume service from Aug 17.
However, as the technical tests were not done in time, the Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Company Limited pushed back the date.
Ten trains ran on the line on Saturday in preparation for the reopening. The train service resumed a day after.
