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Dhaka-Ctg Expressway Design

ADB-chosen group may get the job

Rejaul Karim Byron
The government is likely to go ahead with the six-lane Dhaka-Chittagong Expressway by appointing a consultant to prepare a detailed design of the project with the financial assistance of Asian Development Bank.
The cabinet committee on purchase will consider the proposal of the communications ministry on Sunday to award the job to a consortium chosen by ADB.
If it approves the proposal, Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation International, of Australia; Oriental Consultants, of Japan; Associated Consulting Engineers Consultants Ltd, of Bangladesh, and Castalia Ltd, of New Zealand, will carry out a feasibility study to project various ways of building the expressway. They will then make the detailed design of one, among the options, finalised by the government, and estimate the cost.
Meanwhile, the planning commission has already had a Tk 97.87 crore technical project approved in December last year for consultancy services. ADB will provide Tk 73 crore and the remaining portion will be contributed by the government.
In the proposed budget for the next fiscal year, the expressway is among the priority projects under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative.
When the detailed design is at its midway point, the consultant firms will recommend a PPP investor for the mega project.
Earlier, a joint venture of SNC-Lavalin, SAI Consulting Engineers Pvt Ltd and Consulting Engineers Ltd India & Associates conducted a detailed study of the project from 2006 to 2008 under a separate loan arrangement from ADB.
The study suggested constructing three routes under the project, making a four-lane expressway in the first phase and expanding it to six lanes in the second phase. It was also estimated that an elevated expressway would cost $6.1 billion, while if it was built at ground level, the cost would be $2.2 billion.
Though the study was completed in 2008, the cabinet committee on economic affairs in October 2009 decided, in principle, to implement the project under PPP.
Since then no progress has so far been made in implementing the project.
ADB in early 2011 sent a letter to the principal secretary of the prime minister, emphasising the importance of imple- meriting the project, a communications ministry official said.
In May that year, it highlighted different aspects of the project through a power point presentation in the presence of the then communications minister.
More than two years later, the technical assistance project got the approval ofthe planning commission.
According to a study by ADB, almost 90 percent of the country's total imports and exports are transported through the existing two-lane Dhaka-Chittagong highway.
Sixty percent of vehicles plying the highway carry goods. It takes around eight to 10 hours or sometimes even more to cross the 250-kilometre highway.
The long, strenuous journey means a huge waste of fuel as well as people's working hours. Besides, shipments of goods are often delayed due to long queues of vehicles on the