City traffic is likely to take a fresh knock as the authorities are set to start on November 01 the shifting of utilities from the metro-rail route for building the communications corridor.
Specially, commuters from Mirpur area may suffer much for a couple of months for the spadework under the metro project.     Â
Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development (DMRTD) Project has made the move to relocate different kinds of utility-service lines along the 20-kilometre MRT (mass rapid transit) Line-6 for making the corridor ready before construction work of the country's first metro rail starts.
Officials said as part of the first-phase relocation plan, the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) will relocate 132KV line from Agargaon to Mirpur section-1.
To complete the work, the PGCB will have to keep one lane of the six-lane roads blocked for at least two and a half months, they said.
Project office has faced a challenge in kick-starting construction work of the long-awaited metro rail in the city's north and south corridors for finding unplanned utility lines of at least 12 public and private organisations.
Of these, shifting PGCB's high-tension line is highly challenging, sources said.
Though the DMRTD project office earlier had planned to start all the shifting works at a time, officials said they moved slightly from their earlier plan due to facing more challenges in doing it and decided to carry out the rest of relocation works in phases.
In the previous planning, a DMRTD project office decided to develop 250-metre common space in each of piers where all agencies would relocate their respective lines one after another.
Project Director Mofazzel Hossain said considering possible worsening of traffic congestion in the capital city, the project office changed its utility-shifting plan as it would take at least one month to cover the space completing all agencies' work.
He said the project office with the help of the consultants is trying hard to minimise public suffering during the construction of MRT-6.
"It is very challenging to lessen people's suffering during the construction of the metro rail, but we are trying hard to minimize the suffering," he told the FE at his office.
The DMRTD project authorities have already sat with all concerned to share their utility-shifting plan and tried to revise it. There are works of shifting or relocating different utilities like gas, electricity, telephone or cable lines of gas, water, sewerage, optical-fibre network etc.
A committee with representatives drawn from related ministries has also been working in this regard.
Officials said they had also sat with the Cantonment Board and some private operators to share a map of shifting and get their cooperation in alleviating public sufferings.
smunima@yahoo.com
Shifting of metro route utilities begins Nov 01
Munima Sultana | Published: October 23, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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