DHAKA: The government has given approval of Metro Rail Bill-2014 with the provision of 10 times fine to the person who will travel without ticket.

The approval came from a regular weekly meeting of the cabinet held at secretariat on Monday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.    

After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan made the disclosure while briefing journalists.

He also said if any without ticket traveler is unable to pay the fine, they might be awarded six months jail.

The cabinet secretary also said the first-ever metro rail project will be implemented involving Tk 22,000 crore which was given approval at an ECNEC meeting in 2012.

There will be 16 stations on the way of 20.1km long metro rail from Uttara to Motijheel and some 60,000 passengers can travel in every hour, he added.

In the draft act, life insurance has been mandatory for the metro rail and its passenger.

A ‘Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL)’ has already been formed to operate the metro rail once the project is implemented.

The DMTCL will be supervised by the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority and the proposed law is being framed to give a legal framework to its overall operations, control and regulations, he added.

The proposed law also kept the provisions of maximum 10 years of imprisonment and Tk 1 crore as fine for different irregularities in metro rail project, including ticket blacking.

The route of the Dhaka Metro Rail has been fixed as Uttara (3rd phase)-Central Uttara-Southern Uttara-Pallabi-Mirpur 11-Mirpur 10-Kajipara-Taltala-Agargaon-Bijoy Sarani-Farmgate-Sonargaon-National Museum-Doyel Chatwar-National Stadium-Bangladesh Bank (Motijheel).

BDST: 1756 HRS, NOV 10, 2014