BR seeks triple budget for next fiscal year

The Bangladesh Railway (BR) has sought three times higher budget for the upcoming fiscal year (FY), 2016-17. The organisation says it needs to acquire substantial areas of land, mainly for the Padma Bridge rail connectivity and Dohazari-Cox's Bazar railway projects.
Sources said BR placed a demand of Tk 150.48 billion to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) at a meeting on Monday.
Around Tk 33 billion was shown for acquiring land for the Padma Bridge railway and Dohazari-Cox's Bazar projects, they added.
The amount that BR sought is Tk 84 billion higher than the MoF's ceiling for the railway sector. MoF has set a ceiling of Tk 60.82 billion for the sector in FY 2016-17.
It is also Tk 98 billion higher than the budget BR was allocated in the current fiscal.
BR officials said they have shown their ground to get the increased budget in the upcoming FY during the meeting, as four out of 43 BR projects would take away more than half of the total budget.
They said almost Tk 70 billion would be required for the Padma Bridge Rail Connectivity Project. Tk 15.40 billion would be needed for land acquisition, and Tk 53 billion for paying the Chinese contractor of the project as 'mobilisation cost', if contract is signed in the upcoming fiscal.
BR has signed an agreement with the China Railway Group Limited to construct the 174-km new rail-track connecting the Padma multipurpose bridge, for which the company has placed a proposal of US$ 6.0 billion. After negotiation, the amount came down to $ 3.14 billion.
But BR has decided to appoint independent consultant to review the negotiation through a third party.
The government is yet to sign agreement with the Chinese company. But the BR officials said after the agreement, it has to pay at least 20 per cent of the cost for 'mobilisation'.
"BR has no land from Dhaka to Mawa point to develop the new rail-track for the Padma Bridge. Besides, it would have to acquire huge land from Dohazari to Cox's Bazar to develop the new railway connectivity from regional context," said an official.
The government has already announced to open the Padma Bridge rail connectivity from the day of inauguration of the bridge in 2018.
During the current fiscal, BR would need Tk 1.0 billion and Tk 5.26 billion respectively for the consultancy purpose of Akhaura-Laksam and Dhaka-Tongi third and fourth line projects. For the rest BR projects, Tk 24 billion was sought.
In the current fiscal, the organisation has been allocated Tk 56.5 billion. The amount was revised to Tk 50 billion, as it has to refund the project aid part of the budget allocation due to lack of progress in the projects planned to be implemented under the Indian line of credit.
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