Project limping even after decade

The Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) has sought three and a half years more to build an elevated expressway as it failed to complete it in a decade, officials said on Saturday.
Although the BBA was committed to completing the land acquisition and ancillary work within three and a half years starting from July 2011, the government has already extended the timeline twice, they said.
Now it has sought the extension of the "Support to Dhaka Elevated Expressway project" for the third time until June 2024.

Insiders said the Bridge Authority had failed to acquire 209 acres of lands, 86 per cent of which are government-owned within Dhaka city for constructing the 20km DEE from Airport to Kutubkhali (Dhaka-Chittagong Highways).
The 178.82 acres of the total 209 acres lands are almost free from private occupation as those are owned by government agencies, including the Bangladesh Railway, Roads and Highways, city corporations, RAJUK and Civil Aviation Authority.
Only 30.18 acres of land are owned by the private sector on the alignment of the 20km DEE, now being built by a foreign company through the public-private partnership (PPP).
The failure has not only deprived the daily travelers of the capital of congestion-free travel, but has eaten up millions US dollars in taxpayers' money, the insiders said.
The BBA has recently sought revision of the project expanding the execution deadline up to June 2024 from its current deadline of December 2020, a senior Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges official said.
Besides, it has sought Tk 16.72 billion extra funds from the original estimation for completing the land acquisition project.
The ministry has recently sent the project proposal to the Planning Commission for the 2nd revision.
According to the BBA, it has so far completed 80 per cent of the project until August last.
The Thailand-based company, Ital-Thai Development Public Company Limited was appointed as the private partner of the PPP project in January 2011.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) had approved the Tk 32.17-billion-project back in October 2011.
The BBA took up the project mainly for facilitating the PPP work through acquiring necessary land and resettlement of the affected people, relocation of the utilities, feasibility study, supervision work etc. The first schedule for completion of the project was December 2014.
For the failure to complete the work in time, the government authority extended the deadline to December 2016.
But it had failed again and the ECNEC revised the project extending the timeline by another four years.
The cost for the project was also revised upward by 51 per cent to Tk 48.69 billion. Later, the government authority had rearranged the costs within the inter-components of the project in 2019 at the request of the BBA.
Now the Bridge Authority has again sought revision of the project demanding higher cost and more time for completion of the land acquisition and other relevant work.
This time it has sought three and a half years more up to June 2024 and additional Tk 199.4 million funds from the last revision in 2017.
When asked, project director Abu Humayan Md Shakhawat Aktar told the FE that the complicated land acquisition and financing problem for the PPP party were the main reasons behind the delay.
"This is our first PPP project. The land acquisition and relocation of utility services inside the city are so complicated that it has taken some more time than usual."
"We need to acquire some more land at the middle stage of our project tenure as the Bangladesh Railway has decided to build its 3rd and 4th track between Dhaka-Tongi. So, we need to acquire some more land than our preliminary estimation on the expressway alignment," he added.
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