The commercial negotiation committee of Rajuk has recently finalised a financial proposal, put forward by a Malaysian consortium, for building 8,400 apartments at Uttara in the capital involving about Tk 53 billion, a project insider said.
Rajuk, the city development authority, will submit both the technical and purchase proposals to the ministry of housing and public works later this month to
get approval from the cabinet committee on public purchase. The main committee or the commercial negotiation committee is headed by the Rajuk chairman.
ALM-Gemilang Consortium Ltd made the proposal after the governments of the two countries signed a revised Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in April last year.
Two state-owned construction firms of Malaysia will execute the project with their financial arrangements, using Industrialised Building System (IBS) on design-build-transfer method.
The government first signed a MoU in October 2011 with the Malaysian government to implement some projects in infrastructure development and housing sector under G2G arrangement including that of constructing apartments at Uttara. Later, the government renewed the MoU with some amendments before it expired in October 2014.
"The commercial negotiation committee has finalised the financial proposal involving about Tk 53 billion at an estimated building cost of Tk 3,435 per sqft including other facilities," said AHM Mahmudur Rahman, business and development director of ICC Ltd, an agent of Malaysian company in Bangladesh.
He said there will be 100 buildings - 52 at Block B and 48 at Block C. Each building will be 15-storey with one semi-basement and 84 apartments in each building.
A total of 4,368 apartments will be built at Block B having 1,250 sqft in size while 4,038 apartments at Block C with 1,050 sqft in size.
Other facilities include parking, road communication, central mosque, one primary and one higher secondary school, central community centre, community playground, water and sewerage system, internal electrification and networking, standby generator and sub-station in each building, two passenger and one stretcher or cargo lift in each building, one kitchen market with 32 shops.
"Our main aim is to reduce the construction time by adopting IBS system in building these apartments so that we can hand over the apartments to our clients within 30 months after we start the construction work," said Mr Rahman.
In its 5th meeting held in July last year, the cabinet committee on economic affairs gave approval in principle to construct 8,400 flats at Uttara Apartment Project under a G2G agreement.
Housing Minister Eng Mosharraf Hossain, however, instructed the technical and commercial committees to complete all necessary procedures to get approval from the cabinet committee by September last year so that the Malaysian firms could launch the project as soon as possible.
Rajuk member (development) Naim Ahmed Khan, also convener of the technical committee, told the FE that the technical committee had already submitted its report to the ministry and the commercial committee was preparing its report for submitting it to the purchase committee.
"We are processing our commercial report to send it to the purchase committee as early as possible. Hopefully we can send it later this month," he said.
Besides, the preparation of the master agreement is under way for submitting it for vetting of the law ministry.
"All the works are complicated as we have to consider the interest of the country, the government and Rajuk while approving any proposal of a foreign company. For the first time, this type of infrastructure project is going to be implemented by other country," he said.
Mr Rahman said the Malaysian government wants to make it a landmark infrastructure project, first of its kind in Bangladesh. They are hardly considering about making profit out of it as the project is meant for the low and middle income people, he added.
"We want to ensure timely delivery of flats. Also there will be no compromise with the quality. There will be a limited scope of making any structural change in the designed apartments by the buyers," he said.
Regarding the use of construction materials, Mr Rahman said cement, rod and sand will be procured from Bangladesh as these are already proven to be of international standards.
The ECNEC approved the project in October 2011 with an estimated cost of about Tk 90.31 billion. Under the project, 240 buildings will be constructed at A, B and C blocks within five years.
The number of buildings was later reduced to 179 of which 79 buildings at Block A will be constructed by the Bangladeshi developers in conventional method.
Earlier, a total of 20,160 flats were scheduled to be built at three blocks. But some construction firms owned by two influential lawmakers of the ruling party failed to make any headway after getting the work order.
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Malaysian consortium\\\'s proposal for building 8,400 flats finalised
Kamrun Nahar | Published: January 10, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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