Bangladesh launches its first-ever metro service funded by Japan in Dhaka

Bangladesh on Wednesday launched its first metro rail service with Japanese assistance to ease commuting in the capital Dhaka, one of the most congested cities in the world.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the service accompanied by newly-appointed Japanese Ambassador Kiminori Iwama and Ichiguchi Tomohide, the chief representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which funded the project.

Opening the maiden journey of the Mass-Transit Rail service, Prime Minister Hasina said, "I thank everyone for this accomplishment...this metro rail is also another matter of pride for us."

She said that the first phase of the metro rail was inaugurated on Tuesday and the rest would be opened soon and “some 5.60 million people will use the trains every day when all the metro lines go into operation in 2030".

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The premier opened a 20-kilometre section of the urban rail project, connecting the capital’s northern zone at Uttara area to Agargaon point, a hub of government offices and hospitals in the middle of the city, for now.

Construction was underway to extend the tracks to Motijheel business district in the south, cutting through the city to ease the notorious traffic jams in Dhaka, one of the world's most densely populated cities.

The elevated railway network is slated to grow to over a hundred stations and six lines criss-crossing the city by 2030 while the project saw its initial operation on a section of the first line built at a cost of $2.8 billion and largely with Japanese funding.

The opening of the section came as car-clogged roads appeared to be a constant frustration for Dhaka’s 22 million people while some studies suggest the capital's economy loses upwards of $3 billion each year in lost work time due to traffic congestion.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Index for 2022, Dhaka is the seventh least livable in a list of 172 cities in the world.

Political analysts said the inauguration could provide Hasina’s ruling Awami League political mileage ahead of the scheduled January 2014 general elections amid pressures as the South Asian nation's foreign currency reserves dwindled and it battled inflation and energy crises.

The Dhaka metro rail follows six months after Hasina opened Bangladesh’s longest river bridge, spanning over six kilometres over the Padma River.

The bridge is assumed to have connected 80 million people or nearly half the country's population - linking the southwest to Dhaka and the northeastern region.