The government is set to approve a prohibitively costly land acquisition project for upgrading Dhaka-Sylhet four-lane highway today (Tuesday), officials said on Monday.
The Planning Commission (PC) will place a Tk 38.85 billion project for land acquisition of Dhaka-Sylhet highways at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC).
The development came after the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) of the commission sent back the project in June for further review finding its costs estimate too high.
"We will place the land acquisition project before the ECNEC meeting tomorrow (Tuesday). But we will scrutinise the main road proposal further because it involves huge costs," a senior commission official said.
The commission had sit with the Roads and Highways Department (RHD), its line ministry, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) and other agencies in Dhaka in late July.
"We have asked the RHD to bring down costs and drop unnecessary and less-important components of the project," he added.
The department sought approval for two separate projects amounting to Tk 156.87 billion to upgrade the 214-kilometre road.
Of the two projects, the department proposed Tk 42.75 billion for land acquisition and Tk 114.12 billion for upgrading it to a four-lane highway.
As per the evaluation committee's recommendation, the RHD later trimmed acquisition project cost to Tk 38.85 billion and sent it again to the commission for the ECNEC approval.
However, the evaluation body in its last meeting asked the commission to rationalise cost of the main road work.
Under the project, the department will acquire some 400 acres of land for upgrading the 214-kilometre-road between Dhaka and Sylhet.
The commission official said a committee, headed by the chief of the commission, is working on examining the cost and rationalising it.
Another commission official said, "In our observation, the RHD's cost estimation is higher than other road construction work in Bangladesh."
"For this, we have sent it back and formed a committee to assess the cost and make it rational."
If the RHD's proposal is put into context, it will require Tk 733 million for upgrading each kilometre.
Meanwhile, the RHD upgraded each kilometre of the 192 kilometres Dhaka-Chittagong four-lane project investing Tk 208.2 million only.
The Dhaka-Chittagong road required a total of Tk 39.98 billion, of which Tk 38.17 billion for the highways upgrade and Tk 1.81 billion for building the Mohipal flyover.
The commission official said the RHD has proposed some components with higher estimates, which pushed up the overall cost of the project.
According to the RHD's proposal, it has sought Tk 307.1 million for purchasing cars and furniture, Tk 2.58 billion for local and foreign consultants, and Tk 3.45 billion for staff salary and honorarium.
It also proposed Tk 13.50 billion for 27,604,558 cubic metres of earthen work; Tk 9.19 billion for training/study tour programme and Tk 6.50 billion for sign-signal, road-side facilities and incidental costs.
The department has proposed completing some 400 acres of land for upgrading the highway by December 2020.
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