In 2005, the World Bank published a study report, recommending that the government of Bangladesh build a mass transit system in Dhaka. In the same year, American consultancy firm Louis Berger Group prepared a strategic transport plan for Dhaka.[1] The World Bank helped to develop this plan, which proposed the construction of five MRT lines in Dhaka.[2] The five metro lines were MRT Line 1, MRT Line 2, MRT Line 4, MRT Line 5 and MRT Line 6.[3] In 2017, an agreement was signed between the government of Bangladesh and Japan to build MRT Line 4 on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis.[4] On 1 October 2019, Selina Hayat Ivy, the mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation submitted a written request to Obaidul Quader, the Road Transport and Bridges minister, to connect Narayanganj with the Dhaka Metro network.[5] Although, there was an existing plan to connect the city with Kamalapur by building MRT Line 4 which was proposed to be an underground line parallel with the Narayanganj–Bahadurabad Ghat line.[6] But due to the ongoing double line construction project to increase the commuter service on the line and the construction of the Dhaka–Jessore line, if MRT Line 4 is constructed there, there will not be enough passengers to make the metro line profitable, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) has revised the alignment and changed the destination of the route to Madanpur.[7] In 2023, the government pulled out of the deal with Japan to build MRT Line 4 due to higher costs.[4] the government decided to request the Department of Economic Relations (ERD) to find donors to fund MRT Line 4.[8] ERD found World Bank, Japan and South Korea as potential donors.[9]
The MRT Line 4 is still in the planning stages. There may be changes to the list of stations, including adding new stations, assigning different names to the stations or some stations getting eliminated from the line. Hence, the list of stations is not final and may be updated in the future.[10]