Govt approves 3rd submarine cable project worth Tk 6.93b

The government on Tuesday approved the third submarine cable project worth Tk 6.93 billion to upgrade the country's telecommunication system.
Upon implementation of the project, Bangladesh will get 6.0 terabyte per second of bandwidth that is expected to result in a massive boost of internet speed and facilitate 5G services across the country, officials said.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the project along with three other development projects at a combined cost of Tk 21.15 billion.
Presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the ECNEC meeting was held at the Planning Commission in Dhaka.
After the meeting, General Economics Division (GED) member Dr Shamsul Alam told journalists that the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited (BSCCL) will lay the cable to connect with the global high-speed telecom highway.
Bangladesh would join the SEA-ME-WE-6 cable that also connected Singapore and France. The dispersion of the submarine cable will be from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea via the Arab Sea and the Red Sea.
Bangladesh will join the information super highway at the Bay of Bengal with the submarine cable.
The country's first submarine cable SEA-ME-WE-4 was launched in 2005 and the second one, SEA-ME-WE-5, was launched in 2017.
Planning Commission member Mamun-Al-Rashid told journalists that once the 3rd submarine cable is installed through implementation of this project, extra bandwidth could be exported to the neighboring states of India (seven sisters) and also to Bhutan.
Besides, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has also expressed their eagerness to procure bandwidth from Bangladesh.
According to the BSCCL's project proposal, it will complete the submarine cable connection and installation work by June 2020.
Mr Rashid said that the SEA-ME-WE-6 submarine cable from Singapore to France will extend to the Mediterranean Sea through the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea.
The cable will have core landing stations in Singapore, India, Djibouti, Egypt and France. The Bangladesh branch will stretch to the cable landing station at Cox's Bazar through the Bay of Bengal.
Once the project is implemented, it will be possible to meet the growing demand of uninterrupted modern broadband internet services across the country while it would also be possible to enhance manifold the capacity of BSCCL.
Briefing reporters, GED member Prof Dr Shamsul Alam said that of the total costs for the four projects, Tk 14.41 billion will come from the internal resources, Tk 3.01 billion from implementing agencies' own fund and the rest of Tk 3.73 billion as the project assistance from the external sources.
The meeting also approved the Re-excavation of Arial Kha River, Haridoa River, Brahmaputra River, Paharia River, Meghna Branch River and Old Brahmaputra Branch River under Narsingdi district project (1st revision), enhancing the cost by Tk 4.03 billion, the Modernization of Telecommunication Network for Digital Connectivity (1st revision) enhancing the cost by Tk 7.41 billion, and the Municipal Governance and Services Project (2nd revision) extending the cost by Tk 2.77 billion.
Replying to a question, another Planning Commission member Md Zakir Hossain Akand said the development projects often witness cost over-run and time over-run since those could not be completed within the stipulated timeframe due to various reasons. As a result, the project cost increases due to the changes in rate schedule.
He also informed that the concerned executing agencies would have to take approval of the Finance Division as per the allocation of business if there is any change in the rate schedule.

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