Govt to shoulder around 40pc cost of expressway project

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Munima Sultana
The government plans to shoulder less than 40 per cent cost of the billion- dollar Dhaka elevated expressway to make the first-ever public-private partnership (PPP) project attractive to bidders.
The Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), the executing agency of the mega project, has decided to offer the cost in the form of 'subsidy' during the project implementation period upon request from the short-listed bidders recently.
Officials said the four short-listed companies placed nearly 200 queries to the BBA during pre-bid meetings last week and requested for some incentives including tax waiver to make the project viable to them.
After evaluating the queries, BBA decided to offer the financial help to the winners as the Dhaka elevated expressway (DEE) is the first of its kind and a test case of the government.
"But no tax waiver on the investment of the bidder will be given," said a senior official.
"We have reviewed all sides of the PPP project and decided to offer cash grant over the next three years of implementation period," said a senior official.
He said the DEE project has been proved viable from all sides including commercial and construction methodology and the government decided to support the project by acquiring land and resettlement work along with the subsidy.
In line with the decision, the BBA has already modified the document of the request for proposals (RFP) and placed it at its website on Monday for the bidders. The revision on the RFP document has to be done as the government is yet to get financial model for the PPP because of its new nature.
In India, the subsidy for the similar PPP project is 40 per cent.
The RFPs from the four short-listed companies were invited on August 24 approving the fifth option of the expressway's route alignments. The RFP will be closed in the first week of November targeting to sign the concessional agreement by December and start the construction in January next.
The DEE project has been planned to improve road connectivity between the northern part of Dhaka city and the central, south and south-eastern parts linking important commercial and business centres of the capital to ease the traffic congestion.
The route alignment is designed on Airport-Kuril-Banani-Mohakhali-Tejgaon-Satrasta-Moghbazar-Rail corridor of Kamalapur through Khilgaon-Golapbag-Kutubkhali.
Ital-Thai Development Company Ltd (Italy-Thailand), Sikder Real Estate (Korea-Bangladesh), Gammon-Bougyes JV (India-France) and China Railway International Ltd (China) were selected among nine international companies to compete for the elevated expressway.