The government now moves to build circular railway around the capital city to ease growing traffic congestion inside the metropolis, officials said Saturday.
Ministry of Railway officials said Bangladesh Railway (BR) is expected to conduct a feasibility study for the planned railway by spending Tk 29.33 billion by December 2016.
The state-owned rail-service provider has sent a technical assistance (TA) project proposal to the Planning Commission (PC) for getting approval for the feasibility study, they said.
A BR official told the FE that the circular rail-line will be constructed mainly on the flood-protection dam around the city.
"We will use the eastern bypass as the eastern alignment for the proposed circular railway," he said.
Dhaka city is home of nearly 150 million people where millions of passengers travel every day from one place to another for work.
The existing roads have already been over-flown by motorised and non-motorised vehicles, resulting in nagging traffic jams every day.
Although the area of Dhaka city is less than 1.0 per cent of the country's total land area, it supports about 10 per cent of the total population and 30 per cent of the total urban population.
Earlier in 2005, the Bangladesh government formulated the Strategic Transport Plan (STP) for Dhaka city and its adjacent areas where the detailed transportation system is well-defined. But the STP is not implemented properly, which the experts identified as a major reason behind the growing traffic congestion.
Unplanned urbanisation, especially poor transportation planning and lower land-utilisation efficiency, has turned the city into a dangerous urban jungle. Dhaka has recently received the dubious distinction of being second-worst liveable city in the world.
A senior MoR official said since all the road communications go through the middle of the capital city, the circular railway line will cut the traffic volume inside the city.
Following the STP, the government will build an integrated mass traffic system by constructing seven metro-rail and bus rapid-transit lines. Those lines will basically be built inside the capital city.
The Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) has already started work to construct the 20.10-kilometre-long MRT-6 line from Uttara phase-III to Bangladesh Bank point in Motijheel via Farmgate. And the RHD will build the 20-km BRT from Airport to Gazipur.
Later, the DTCA will construct two other metro-rail routes: 23-km-long MRT-4 Uttara-DIT-Sayadabad line and 23-km MRT-5 circular line along Gulshan-DIT-Gulshan in the city.
Among the three other BRT routes, the authority will build 23km BRT-1 along Purbachal-DIT-Sayadabad, 14km BRT-2 line along Gabtoli-Dhanmondi-New Market-Sayadabad route and 23km BRT-3 Uttara-DIT-Sayadabad route.
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