The government needs to spend Tk 1.06 billion extra money and allow two and a half years more time for upgrading only 12.5 kilometre road due to failure of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) to complete its construction in time, officials said Saturday.
The RHD is set to miss the extended deadline for upgrading a 12.5 km road on Chittagong-Rangamati highway to a four-lane one due to its poor implementation performance although it started the work in July 2009.
"The RHD has already missed the first deadline of December 2013. Later, the government extended it until December 2014. It is now going to miss the deadline again," said an official at the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges (MoRTB).
Official sources said the physical progress of the Chittagong (Oxygen More) to Hathazari road on the Chittagong-Rangamati highway was only 30 per cent up to September this year.
Failing to complete the road by the stipulated time, the RHD has sought two and a half years more time and Tk 1.06 billion additional funds for completing the struggling four-lane road upgradation project, an MoRTB official said.
The RHD undertook the Chittagong (Oxygen more) to Hathazari road expansion with divider project at Tk 1.30 billion cost for executing it between July 2009 and December 2013.
Due to delay in its execution, the MoRTB extended the time by one more year for the RHD to complete the construction work of the highway.
Recently, the RHD has sent a project proposal to the Planning Commission (PC) seeking revision of the project raising the cost to Tk 2.26 billion from the original Tk 1.30 billion and the implementation timeline up to July 2017 from the current December 2014.
Meanwhile, the RHD has revised the project proposal cutting some components from the original development project proposal (DPP) of the Tk 1.30 billion project.
According to the RHD, having failed to meet the deadline the state-owned road developer has scrapped some components including land acquisition, building of the slow-moving vehicles lane, and shifting of the pucca and semi-pucca establishments on the roadside to other places.
After scrapping the above components, some Tk 605.10 million worth of fund has been saved from the original Tk 1.30 billion costing of the project.
"But the RHD has raised its cost by 75 per cent in the revised DPP," said a PC official.
An RHD official, preferring anonymity, said they need more funds due to enhancement of cost for shipment of the utility services, change of the road profile at the market places and building of 1.92km retaining wall on the roadside.
A PC official said a government agency after failing to upgrade a 12.5km road within the stipulated four and a half years time seeks Tk 1.06 billion higher funds from the public money.
"We are being forced to revise the project providing 75 per cent higher funds and two and a half years more time to build a small portion of the Chittagong-Rangamati highway," he told the FE requesting anonymity.
However, the chief engineer of the RHD could not be reached over mobile phone for his comments on this project.
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