Acquisition of land for DEE to cost govt Tk 32b Affected people to be offered land or flat

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Munima Sultana The government has to bear an additional cost of Tk 32.16 billion for the Dhaka Elevated Expressway (DEE) project to acquire highly expensive land in the city and rehabilitate the affected people in suitable places. Officials said the land acquisition and resettlement cost of the project has been calculated on the basis of the decision to give 'land against land or flat against flat' to the affected people. The Executive Committee on National Economic Council (ECNEC) on October 18 approved the cost of land acquisition and resettlement of the DEE project under a separate project component titled, Land Acquisition-Resettlement and Utility Support to DEE. The government is con- tributing 27 per cent of the $1.2 billion project as viability gap funding. According to a study of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), 284 acres of land would be acquired for construction of the 42-km expressway with at least five ramps. Of the total land, 130 acres of land belong to private owners and the rest to various government agencies, including the Roads and Highways, the Bangladesh Railway and the Cantonment Board. Officials said the government has taken a decision not to financially compensate the persons, who will lose land for constructing piers of the elevated road, from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to Kutubkhali of the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway. They said it has been planned to give plots to the affected people from the land, owned by the government or the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakhya (RAJUK), in suitable areas in or outskirts of the city, or to provide them with flats in the city. "The decision on how the affected people will get their compensation is yet to be finalised. But surely the government will offer them options to take land or flat against their loss," said an official. "The way the prices of land and flat are increasing in the city, it will not be possible for the government to compensate the affected people financially," he added. The government on June 27 passed a special law on acquiring land for the DEE project, restricting some of the usual practices in case of land acquisition. The Dhaka Elevated Expressway Project (Land Acquisition) Bill 2011 was passed to prevent a section of people from constructing illegal houses or installations on the acquired land and claiming financial benefit from the government. It also restricts filing of cases by land-owners in the lower court to reduce the time of case settlement or avoiding legal conflict. The Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), the implementing agency of the mega project, signed a concessional agreement with Ital-Thai Development Public Limited Company on January 19 to construct a major portion of the elevated expressway.