The schedules of the metro rail will be changed from June 19 following the change in the timing in the public offices to facilitate the people.
The government is going to restore the old office timing between 9:00am and 5:00pm on weekdays for the public offices from June 19.
On June 17, on the upcoming Eid-ul-Azha day, services of the metro rail will remain closed while cattle, raw or cooked meat and raw hide cannot be carried by the trains.
At a press conference held in the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited headquarters in Dhaka on Thursday, the company managing director, MAN Siddique, also said that the frequency of the metro rail would be longer on public holidays from June 16.
Currently, the country鈥檚 first-ever electricity-powered elevated and air-conditioned rail system is running for 14 hours and a half between 7:10am and 9:40pm on the 20.1km Uttara-Motijheel route in the capital every day, except Fridays.
The trains now are running every eight minutes during peak hours, every 10 minutes during special off peak hours and every 12 minutes during off peak hours.
As per the new schedules, from June 19 from the Uttara North station the peak hours will be 鈥� from 7:31am to 11:36am and from 2:25pm to 8:32pm, the special off-peak hour will be 鈥� from 7:10 to 7:30am and from 8:33pm to 9:00pm and the off peak hours will be 鈥� from 11:37am to 2:24pm.
From the Motijheel station the peak hours will be from 8:01am to 12:08am and from 3:05pm to 9:12pm, the special off-peak hour will be from 7:30 to 8:00am and from 9:13pm to 9:40pm and the off-peak hours will be from 12:09am to 3:04pm.
MAN Siddique also said that as the number of passengers became fewer on Saturdays and other public holidays they had taken a decision to increase the timing between the frequencies of the trains.
From June 16, from Uttara North station the metro trains will run every 15 minutes between 7:10am and 9:40am and every 12 minutes between 9:41am and 9:00pm and from Motijheel station the metro trains will run every 15 minutes between 7:30am and 10:20am and every 12 minutes between 10:20am and 9:40pm, he mentioned.
The official also said that currently across the days the metro trains run for 194 times which would be 196 times from June 19.
鈥業n the past seven days daily on average 3.25 lakh passengers used metro rail against the capacity of metro trains to carry 4.52 lakh passengers daily,鈥� he said, adding that on an average one carriage of a metro train is currently carrying 1,675 to 1,700 passengers against the capacity of carrying 2,308 ones.
About the decision of the National Board of Revenue to impose value added tax on the metro rail services from July 1, he added that they had applied to change the decision.
