Ministry agrees to hand over rly land, finally

A row over setting up of a multimodal transport hub is likely to be eased after the Ministry of Railway (MoR) agreed in principle to hand over the Railway land considering the importance of the hub to serve greater number of commuters.
The Bangladesh Railway (BR) had been refusing to hand over 1.34 acres of land at Airport Station as demanded by the Road and Highways Department (RHD) on the ground of having its own mega plan in the area in future.
To settle the row, the MoR organised an inter-ministerial meeting on Tuesday at Railway Bhaban and decided to hand over the land after inspecting the station and nearby sites.
"Both the sides have come to an agreement about the need for the multimodal transport hub. Still, there is a scope for a review of the spot," said an official who attended the meeting.
He said the meeting decided to activate a committee formed two years ago to review location of the spot and propose to the ministries any alternative and better place available for it.
"There is no doubt about the multimodal transport hub to facilitate millions of passengers of railway, bus rapid transit and mass rapid transit. But we have a plan to set up four-lane track on the corridor to facilitate increasing railway passengers and railway cargo," said rail secretary Firoz Salah Uddin, who chaired the meeting.
He said the BR will also need the airport station for transporting lubricant oil from the airport.
For that reason, the secretary told the FE that the decision was taken to activate the committee to find more suitable place within next 15 days as the BR could provide land from other side.
The BR and the then Ministry of Communication in 2013 signed an agreement to hand over BR land for the multimodal transport hub as recommended by transport experts to construct it under public-private partnership (PPP) concept as an interchange of BRT line 3, Dhaka Elevated Expressway, MRT and taxi.
    [email protected]