The fee for supervision consultancy work on bus rapid transit line project has increased by 46 per cent due to delay in completing the construction work on dedicated bus corridor from Gazipur to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
The cabinet committee on government purchase has already approved a hefty fee of Tk 1.28 billion after Roads and Highways Department (RHD) placed a variation proposal for Tk 409 million at a meeting held in September.
SMEC International in association with Systra SA of France, Brisbane City Enterprises of Australia and ACE Consultant of Bangladesh was awarded the consultancy work against the proposal for Tk 877.5 billion in 2013.
Sources said the variation proposal was placed due to an extension of supervision time by the joint venture consultancy firm for "failure" to complete the project last year.
"As the construction work took time to start, two to three years elapsed at the initial stage," said an official of the project.
He, however, said the authority extended the time and increased the fee of consultancy work for adding a new component to the project. The project office has added the construction of a 620-metre underpass from HSIA to the western side of Haji camp to implement the prime minister's directives in this regard.
RHD has been developing a 20-kilometre BRT south corridor along with Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) and Bangladesh Bridge Authority under a project named Greater Dhaka Sustainable Urban Transport (GDSUT).
RHD is working on development of 16-km surface road along with six flyovers. BBA is responsible for constructing a 4-km elevated part of road.
Only the LGED's part of the project was progressing well with developing a depot under one package and local road and market development under another package.
As a result, the cost of the Tk 13.13-billion BRT project undertaken in 2013 increased to Tk 42.67 billion after revision of the development project proposal twice. The first time revision pushed up the cost to Tk 23.82 billion.
When asked about the necessity of revision of DPP for further increase in the project cost and time to accommodate the construction of an underpass, the project office said the last DPP revision has set aside Tk 6.20 billion as block allocation for additional part.
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