Bangladesh gets first metro rail

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Bangladesh’s capital is about to get its first metro rail, a Japanese-funded project that aims to ease commuting in one of the most congested cities in the world.

A section of the 20-kilometer (12.427 miles) urban rail project, known as Line 6, will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on 28 Dec 2022. The line connects the northern zone of Dhaka to a hub of government offices and hospitals in the middle for now. Eventually it will cut through the city to the financial district of Motijheel in the south.

While the project is likely to bring significant changes to how people travel in Dhaka, its inauguration will also give some much-needed political mileage to Hasina’s government. With elections expected in January 2024, the leader and her party are under pressure as the South Asian nation’s foreign currency reserves dwindle and it battles inflation and energy crises.