MRT suffers second biggest setback since starting operations

The operations of metro rail remained suspended for nearly one-and-a-half hours on Sunday due to, what officials said, sudden power outage in one portion of the Uttara-Motijheel corridor.
As the trains of Mass Rapid Transit Line 6 (MRT6) stopped between Uttara South and Shewrapara stations, all other trains on the 20.1-kilometre corridors automatically stopped at the nearby stations through a backup system to let the passengers get down, they added.
Since starting its operations, it would be the second biggest setback the MRT-6 faced after August 23 last year when the services remained suspended for two hours.
The Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) has formed a five-member committee with members of the operations and construction teams to find the reasons behind the electricity disruption and submit a report in a week.
DMTCL Managing Director MAN Siddique told the FE over phone that the operations remained off from 2:40 pm and resumed at 4:05 pm on the day.
He did not assign the blame for the incident, but said the committee will work on the incident.
An official, preferring not to be named, said the electricity supply resumed at 3:57 pm after changing equipment at Mirpur 11 station and the train operations started at 4:01 pm.
While talking to some regular MRT passengers, who travelled at different times including the disruption period on Sunday, it was learnt that the train operations also disrupted around 8:10 am near Pallabi for a short while.
Another passenger, who was in a train at 2:30 pm, also reported the train movement was slowed down at one stage near Mirpur.
The DMTCL MD, however, was not aware of such kind problems and said they have to be cautious about the crowd of Biswa Ijtema and keep entry doors of the Uttara North station closed from time to time between 9:30 am and 11:30 pm to manage the returnee Ijtema pilgrims.
He said they allowed the returnees to enter into the stations with the capacity of each train. After two to three trains left with the highest capacity of Ijtema returnee passengers, the gate was open as normal, he added.
Since December 29 in 2022, the DMTCL has been operating the MRT 6, but it launched the country's first metro rail partially for limited time with its first hand trained operations and management team under the supervision of the Japanese team.
Later, the state-owned company expanded train operations by gradually synchronizing both time of operations from Uttara to Agargaon and the operations of the trains on other parts from Agargaon to Motijheel during the entire year of 2023.
The DMTCL started operating on the entire Uttara-Motijheel corridor maintaining the same time from 7:10 am to 8:0 pm on January 20 without readying adequate staff to manage the operations.
However, since the launching, the company faced different small and big technical problems several times. It has also formed an inquiry committee to find out the reasons for the incidents.
The DMTCL almost every week sent letters to its Japanese contractors and consultants with the problems it faced in operations.

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