Govt shifts ground on method

FE Team | Published: September 15, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

A Z M Anas
The caretaker government is moving ahead with a plan to build the proposed elevated expressway in Dhaka at the cost of US$500 million through public-private partnership (PPP) to help ease the capital's traffic problem.
"We feel that public-private partnership can be the best option of constructing a two-storied elevated expressway in the capital," a senior communications ministry official said.
"The potential mega-project will be implemented with financing from both the government and the private sector. The government side will bear 49 per cent of the costs while 52 per cent will be mobilised from a strategic investor," the official added.
But private sector experts maintain that although the government is a minority shareholder, the country may find it "extremely difficult" to pool in funds from investors-be local or foreign-to implement the multi-million-dollar project.
Originally, the government agreed, in principle, to implement the road infrastructure project on the basis of build-operate and transfer (BOT).
But it was not immediately clear what factors prompted the relevant ministry to go for PPP method, shifting its earlier stance.
Officials at communications ministry said that the project proposal would be forwarded to the Private Infrastructure Committee (PICOM), a high-profile body responsible for scrutinising private infrastructure projects, by September.
If approved by the PICOM, the government will invite international tender for selecting the strategic investor in line with the Private Sector Infrastructure Guidelines, the officials added.
The investor will be allowed to take out tolls for a-40-year period, an official noted.
Meanwhile, the communications ministry has assigned the Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited to carry out the feasibility study on the project, for which the Thai government once evinced interest to finance the construction of the expressway.
A source at the communications ministry said an expert team of the Thai-Italian joint-venture company made Sunday a presentation on the project detailing the alignment, costs and other relating issues.
Although the idea of building such an expressway was conceived several years ago, politico-bureaucratic tangle stood in the way of faster construction, the sources noted. Also, the Thai government backtracked financing the project at the halfway stage, they added.
Thai Exim Bank had agreed to extend 60 per cent in loan while Thai and Bangladesh governments was suppose to equally share the rest 40 percent of total cost of the project.
Officials say the elevated expressway will provide a "breathing space" for the city dwellers who have continued to suffer from Dhaka's perennial traffic congestion, causing unlimited time wastage of the public.
With an estimated 12 million residents, Dhaka is considered one of the fastest-growing mega cities in the world, but it has only 220 kilometres of roads.
According to the original project proposal, the 20-kilometre-long expressway, to be built in two phases, was supposed to take six years to complete.
Some 13 kilometres-long expressway with a four-lane viaduct over the existing roads was supposed to be built in the first stage.
The first phase's revised route is to extend from Kemal Ataturk Avenue to the Mohakhali flyover to the Sonargaon crossing to New Market to Katabon to Phulbaria to Gulistan (Golpashah Majar) to the second Buriganga bridge, according to a project concept paper submitted to the planning commission.
On the other hand, the expressway will have exit points at Golapshah Mazar, Nilkhet, New Market and the Sonargaon crossing.
The project document pointed out the second phase of the elevated expressway will stretch from Kemal Ataturk Avenue (Banani) to Pragati Sarani. It can take another three years to complete construction of the second phase.
At least 30,000 vehicles will be able to pass through the expressway an hour, thereby reducing the number of vehicles on the roads, according to the project proposal.
The issue of the Thai government's involvement in the project came up at the official parley between Dhaka and Thailand during the then Thai premier's visit to Bangladesh in 2002.
Later, the Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited had carried out a pre-feasibility study on the proposed overpass and submitted its report in December 2002.
But the project got stuck in policy indecision during the immediate past BNP government's tenure much to dismay of the city dwellers.
"The private investors will want business. So, the fresh move to erect the overpass through PPP is unlikely to get overwhelming investors' response from the potential strategic investors as the government agency is traditionally non-responsive to businesses," an expert who preferred to remain unidentified insisted.