The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to get a new building with all logistic and advanced facilities after 49 years of its inception.
The 12-storey building in the city's Agargaon area is set to be completed by June at a cost of Tk 4.51 billion.
Currently, the NBR building is situated in the city's Segunbagicha area, which is known as extension of the Bangladesh Secretariat. The building, ill-equipped to serve people, has a dilapidated escalator, congested conference room, insufficient washroom, and lack of other basic facilities for both visitors and revenue officials.
The entity would be able to relocate its main administrative wings, large taxpayers units of income tax and VAT, central intelligence cell, and research and statistics wings to the new building by this year.
Offices of appeal tribunal of income tax, VAT and customs, and director general of inspection would also be relocated to the new building.
Each of the floors of the building has about 46,000 square feet space, which is the largest floor space among all buildings in Bangladesh.
The glass-made modern building with escalators, 13 elevators, automated building management system, fire safety measures, 13 conference rooms, express power connections, sufficient car parking, daycare, prayer room and other facilities.
Branches of commercial banks, ATM booth, post office, and courier services would also be there.
The building would be officially inaugurated after getting nod of the government high-ups.
The project work first started in 2013, and then it was revised in 2017. It is scheduled to be completed by June 2022.
Project officials said construction of the NBR building faced several obstacles, including building redesigning following civil aviation guidelines, arrest of contractor G K Shamim, COVID pandemic, and latest Russia-Ukraine war.
Md Lutful Azeem, project director and income tax commissioner of tax zone-10, said construction of the new building was a challenge for his team due to a number of obstacles during the last few years.
Cooperation of the NBR high-ups helped the project team to proceed smoothly, he added.
doulot_akter@yahoo.com