The much-desired dream metro rail has formally started transporting passengers from Uttara station to Agargaon in the congested city of Dhaka.
Most of the passengers expressed their excitement as they stood in the queue to buy tickets while many who got on the train said the experiences were fabulous. There were festive mood all around the Diabari station in Uttara on Thursday.
The metro rail has been opened for general passengers at 8 am on Thursday. Metro rail with passengers left for the first time at 8:15 am from North Uttara station to Agargaon station.
Some of these passengers were office goers, some came with their families and many were simply enthusiastic travels who had come to experience what it feels like to take a ride on the metro rail.
Lots of common passengers were seen standing in long queues since early morning to fulfill their dreams of traveling by Metro rail. On reaching Agargaon metro rail station from Uttara on Thursday (December 29) morning many passengers were seen highly satisfied and jubilant.
Rayan Islam Rudra, a student of New Model Degree College, in the capital said that it was the first time in his life he boarded the metro rail. He also said that there was no trouble inside the train.
“Everyone was very excited. I could not imagine it would come so fast. It takes 13 minutes 30 seconds to reach Uttara Metro Rail from Agargaon. I see on TV channels that metro rail runs outside the country. Now the metro rail is running in my country and traveled on that metro rail on the first day itself. This is indeed a lifetime experience,” a happy face of Rayan expressed.
Tanzil Ahmed, who got the metro rail ticket for the first time, said that earlier he used to come by bus for work in these areas including Mirpur, Motijheel, Shahbagh. He was stuck in a long jam. It was difficult to get from one end of the city to the other end. Such sufferings would soon be overI hope with the introduction of metro rail,” Ahmed said.
Mamun, assistant manager of a private company, said that after standing in line for a long time, he got a ticket to go to Uttara. “I came early in the morning and stood in line. Finally got the ticket after long wait. The ticket counter was very crowded on the first day. Today it is very exciting day for me. Lucky to get a ticket. First time travelling on metro rail. It feels great to travel by metro rail on the first day. No suffering in traffic jams.”
According to most of the passengers the experiences on traveling metro rail was a dream come true. Subarna, a school teacher said that the journey of the desired metro rail will bring order to the city's public transport system, save people's precious time, and environmental pollution will be reduced due to the reduction in the use of fuel, oil and gas.
It is also said that the country's financial prosperity, employment opportunities will increase, more people can be involved in economic activities expecting higher salaries.
However, in spite of all this, the metro rail did not run after 12 noon as previously announced. As a result, thousands of people had to leave the station without fulfilling their desire to travel by metro rail.
Meanwhile, earlier on Wednesday (December 28) Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the metro rail project by unveiling the name plaque at the playground of C-1 Block of Uttara Sector 15 after 11:00 o'clock that day.
The construction of this 21.16 km long metro rail from Uttara to Kamalapur at a cost of taka 33 thousand 471 crores 99 lakhs is going on with the cooperation of Japan's development agency JICA.
