The metro rail project is facing a fresh hurdle due to complexity over getting land from Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakhya (RAJUK) for the depot of the high-priority project, project insiders said.
Although there are directives from the Prime Minister's Office, the cabinet and the ministry of housing and public works to hand over 54 acres of land from its Uttara 3rd phase project area, sources said, the RAJUK has been indifferent in this regard.
The latest deadline March 30, set by the task force on first- track projects, also passed without any response from the state-owned city developer.
Officials said due to the delay in getting the depot site, consultants could not start detailed design work of the 20.5 kilometre MRT line-6. The general consultant was awarded the work in last November.
The country's first MRT project to be set up in the city's busiest north-south corridor has already been a year behind the schedule as it had to change its alignment two times and depot location from Pallabi to Uttara. It took time to get cooperation from the Dhaka City Corporation, the Air Force and the Bangladesh Army in 2011.
Although the RAJUK assured giving its land for MRT depot from the Uttara 3rd phase area at that time, it started showing indifferent attitudes afterwards.
Amid pressure later on, the city developer handed over only 14 acres of land from the project area last year but refrained from giving the rest in violation of order by the higher authority.
Sources said the issue of RAJUK's dilly-dallying was discussed during a cabinet meeting on April 28 which was raised after getting no response to the deadline set by the task force. It is learnt that the Prime Minister also gave an order to hand over the land for the depot of the MRT line-6.
Since the beginning, the RAJUK said that the authority has kept 54 acres of land for setting up a kitchen market, warehouse and commercial building to be used for the 400,000 inhabitants of the Uttara 3rd Phase project.
Though the DMRT project assured accommodating the public facilities in the depot design later on, the RAJUK further argued that it has to surrender a lake and bridge designed for the project area if the land is given.
The RAJUK chairman, however, refrained from giving any comment over phone and said the issue might come during the board meeting of the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority of which the RAJUK is a member.
Different quarters including city planners said due to commercial interests of vested groups, a section in the RAJUK is creating obstruction in giving the land for the mass transport project.
Huge trading centering kitchen market, commercial plots, bus terminal etc, they allege, is creating obstruction in giving the land.
The city planners said bus terminal and underground train shown in the design of the Uttara 3rd phase project have no consistency with the surrounding and existing facilities.
The project officials said the city developer will have to surrender only 4.5 acres land kept for the man-made lake and a bridge on the location. These facilities can easily be set up or redesigned in other open spaces of the project area, they added.
Urban planner architect Iqbal Habib said all the public facilities like lake and water body, must be planned in a holistic way so that it is accepted with surrounding and neighbourhood.
There is scope to make consistency with the project's facilities with other public interests including the mass transport project, he added.
The government launched the DMRT project in 2010 after a study found the 21.5 km route from Pallabi to Sayedabad feasible for the MRT line-6.
However, the alignment had to be revised several times due to non-cooperation by different agencies and fixed from Uttara to Motijheel through Khamarbari instead of Bijoy Sarani after the intervention of the Prime Minister in 2011.
The length of the MRT-6 stood at 20.5 km after the change. As per the demand of the project's financier Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the cabinet later in March 2012 approved the alignment.
The JICA and the government signed an agreement to fund $2.1 billion to the $2.9 billion MRT project on February 20, 2013.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
