Railway saves over Tk 16b in two projects

Munima Sultana | Published: January 13, 2025 22:58:26

Bangladesh Railway has saved over Tk 16 billion in two projects involving new track development on the Dhaka-Chattogram rail corridor and the Akhaura-Agartala line after final revisions.
Sources say reduced estimations have been proposed for contingency, resettlement, transport procurement, and administrative expenditures in both projects.
Estimations for such components of development projects used to be shown at higher amounts in the last 15 years.
Officials said over Tk 15 billion had remained unspent in the Akhaura-Laksam line project for various reasons.
They said Tk 10 billion was saved during the first revision of the development project proposal (DPP), and another Tk 5.18 billion in the final revision, which is yet to be approved.
The Tk 65.04 billion project was first revised, reducing the cost to Tk 55.04 billion to develop 72km dual-gauge double lines and convert 112 kilometres of the existing lines into dual gauge.
As the project deadline was proposed to be extended till June this year, the project office further revised the DPP, proposing the cost at Tk 49.86 billion.
Meanwhile, it has been proposed not to spend Tk 1.6 billion on the Tk 4.77 billion Akhaura-Agartala line project as its signalling and telecommunication work was done under the Akhaura-Laksam project.
Sources said the project, which kept Tk 16.7 million for transports, reduced the budget to only Tk 7,27,000. The final estimation was proposed to be Tk 3.18 billion in the first DPP revision.
The original DPP set Tk 37 million for manpower, Tk 86.8 million for physical contingency, and Tk 347.5 million for price contingency. These amounts remained unspent in the revised DPP.
Funded by the Asian Development Bank, the Akhaura-Laksam dual gauge double line project's deadline has been extended five times from 2020 to June 2025 due to delays in completing a total of 184.60 kilometres of tracks.
On the other hand, the Akhaura-Agartala line project, which commenced in June 2016, also saw its deadline extended for the sixth time to develop 6.6km dual-gauge and 2.2km loop lines.
According to sources, the physical progress of the project having Indian grants was recorded at 99.5 per cent.
The Akhaura-Laksam line project was inaugurated by the previous Awami League government before the last national election. At the time, the project was not completed.
smunima@yahoo.com