Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina visited the vandalised metro rail station at Mirpur 10 in Dhaka on Thursday morning.
She inspected different parts of the station, which was damaged in an attack by an unidentified group of people during the recent quota reform movement.
The Mirpur-10 and Kazipara metro rail stations were vandalised on Friday. Metro rail services were suspended on July 18 amid demonstrations by students demanding quota reforms in government jobs.
Senior officials of the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited briefed the PM regarding the extent of the damages to Mirpur-10 and Kazipara metro rail stations as well as the plan to reopen the stations.
Officials at the DMTCL indicated that the reopening schedule would be declared once the inquiry committee, formed to assess the damages, submitted its report within 10 working days.
The inquiry committee was formed on July 22 to assess the extent of the damages to the metro rail and to determine when it can be made operational again.
Additional Secretary Mohammad Zakaria, who is the additional director of the metro rail MRT Line-6 project, is leading the committee.
The government opened the metro station for the public on March 01, 2023, nearly two months after the inauguration of the country鈥檚 much-awaited metro rail.
The main construction work of the project started in 2017.
The cost of the country鈥檚 first-ever metro rail project stood at Tk 33,472 crore. Notably, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided Tk 19,719 crore in the form of a loan to support the project, while the Government of Bangladesh funded the remaining amount.
In the beginning, the estimated cost of this project was about Tk 21,000 crore. The cost increased due to the construction of an additional 1.6 km section from Motijheel to Kamalapur, the acquisition of new land for each station, and the addition of various new facilities.
The prime minister formally inaugurated the Uttara-Agargaon section of the MRT-6 line of the metro rail on December 28, 2022.
