Installation of tracks and electricity poles along the Uttara-Motijheel metro rail corridor has started from the depot site at Diabari, showing a good progress in the mass rapid transit line-6 project.
Officials said more than 8.0-kilometre viaduct of the 20-km route has already been in place for the first phase of installation work of the track on the first-ever metro rail.
Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader will inaugurate the track installation work at a ceremony to be held at Uttara depot site on Wednesday.
At the ceremony, a yearlong celebration to mark the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman will also be announced, sources said. A logo of the centenary celebration will also be released on the occasion.
They said the minister will also inaugurate the overhead electric train catenary system of MRT-6 on the same occasion.
"We have taken all necessary preparations to inaugurate the track installation work on Wednesday," said MAN Siddique, managing director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited, the implementing agency of the project.
Wherever the viaducts will be readied, he said, rail tracks will be placed with electric mast.
Official sources said out of 10km viaducts from Uttara to Agargaon, 8.15km viaducts have been visible till December 15. In other parts from Agargaon to Motijheel, 51 piers, out of 272, have been erected till November.
DMTCL has already received all tracks for its entire 20km route, they added.
As of November, 38.35 per cent progress in MRT-6 was made.
Work on the first phase from Uttara to Agargaon was recorded 65.07 per cent and Agargaon to Motijheel 34.54 per cent.
Some 23.58 per cent progress was also recorded in installation of the electrical and mechanical system and rolling stock and depot equipment.
DTMCL has already completed depot site development work at Uttara 3rd phase along with completing some depot structures--retaining wall, test track bed, coach unloading area, embedded track, jack pit, bogie turntable, under-floor wheel lathe pit, bogie wash plant, bogie assembled pit, inspection pit and interface pit foundation.
The state-owned company will build 52 structures at the depot.
Officials said work on workshop, stabling yard and shed, operation control centre, auxiliary substation, traction substation, depot controller training center, rolling stock maintenance, crew booking, chief depot controller, effluent treatment plant and sewage treatment plant (STP) is progressing well.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges has taken the initiative to develop the mass transit system to ease traffic congestion. As part of its 20-year transport policy, Strategic Transport Plan (STP), six metro rails have been planned in the city by 2030.
Though MoRTB earlier set the target to launch the first phase of MRT-6 from Uttara to Agargaon by 2019, it, however, revised the target to launch the entire route by 2021 on the occasion of the country's 50th anniversary of Independence.
Apart from MRT-6, DMTCL has also made a good progress in making two other metro rail projects named MRT-1 and 5 (north) ready for construction.
Meanwhile, the monthly progress report also showed that work on Tongi and Maniknagar grid substations and Uttara receiving substations are also going fast.
Construction of metro rail bogy began in Japan on April 16 this year. The first set of train will arrive in the country in June next year.
However, a dummy bogy is expected to arrive in the country within a day or two, a source said.
