Opening the first bus-based mass-transit corridor from Gazipur to Dhaka Airport has been delayed by another year, as officials have decided to cancel the tender to purchase buses for the 20-kilometre Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor over alleged irregularities in the bidding process.
Sources said the Dhaka BRT Company Limited is likely to issue a fresh tender for the bus procurement once its board members officially cancel the previous tender to avoid potential legal complications if the lowest bidder is selected.
They said the company received complaints about the evaluation committee's selection process, as the two lowest bidders are from the same company.
However, official sources said a final decision on both the cancellation and the fresh tender will be made after receiving the consent of AFD -- the project's French financier.
The Dhaka BRT Company board met on November 8 to discuss the re-tendering of the bus procurement process, which was one of the 21 agendas of the meeting.
The company floated the tender last January to purchase 137 diesel-run buses, deviating from its original plan of operating articulated buses. The target was to commute 30,000 passengers per hour by June 2023.
After failing to meet that deadline, the company later tried to operate the corridor with buses from the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) to satisfy the government by enabling the partial inauguration of the troubled project ahead of the next national election.
However, the overall progress of the project in completing the necessary infrastructure was also abysmal, as the two Chinese contractors almost stopped working.
Project insiders said the time to buy buses was wasted as the board sought the opinion of the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) and a third party on the evaluation report.
Although the Central Procurement Technical Unit cleared the allegations, the board later discussed the issue in more detail based on the third-party analysis and decided to go for a fresh tender, they added.
The Dhaka BRT project was first approved in 2012 under a project titled Greater Dhaka Sustainable Urban Transport Project (GDSUTP) to develop all necessary infrastructure, such as an elevated road, expansion of existing bridges and crossing management of the 20-kilometre corridor.
But, its development project proposal (DPP) has already been revised twice, in 2015 and 2018, doubling the cost from Tk 20.38 billion to Tk 42.68 billion. The last deadline for completion was June 2023.
The Financial Express also found that most of the stations on the corridor are half-done and many construction and station materials are being kept unsecured in open spaces.
smunima@yahoo.com