Some 174 consultants, overseas trainings schemed for electric charging stations

Some 174 consultants, numerous foreign-training programmes and other less-important components constitute the panoply of a project planned for constructing seven electric-charging stations for vehicles, sources say.
Insiders say the 174 individual and company consultants will be hired for the project proposed by Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) for setting up the electric vehicle (EV)-charging stations.
Besides, they add, both the government transport agencies have proposed huge expenditures for foreign trainings to teach public servants about the EV charging and set aside a significant amount of funds for disbursement as honorarium.
Few officials involved with the project-approval process told the FE Sunday that BRTA and BRTC have proposed spending Tk 6.29 million for setting up seven EV-charging stations while the remaining Tk 15.73 million from the project funds for hiring consultants, foreign training, honorarium and other less-important purposes.
Meanwhile, the two entities have recently taken up a Tk 22.02-million technical-assistance project with the financial support of the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) for setting up the seven EV-charging stations and training up manpower.
Titled 'Bangladesh enabling electric vehicles adoption (BEEVA) in the framework of sustainable energy-based transportation', the project has been placed with the Planning Commission (PC) for approval.
According to project proposal, BRTA and BRTC has proposed to hire services of 92 (person-month) local individual consultants for Tk 2.31 million, 42 (person-week) foreign individual consultants at a cost of Tk 3.25 million and 40 consultancy firms (person-month) for Tk 3.76 million.
The public agencies have proposed Tk 4.58 million for foreign trainings for 100 public servants, Tk 9.64 million for local trainings, Tk 0.8 million as honorarium for members of the Project Steering Committee, Project Implementation Committee and some other project-relevant committees for their attendance to meetings.
They would arrange seminars, and workshops or conference during the project period by spending Tk 7.49 million.
The project office will rent vehicles at Tk 3.60 million, spend additional Tk 0.29 million for local travel expenses, Tk 2.05 million for office furniture and decorations and Tk 0.80 million for entertainment and refreshments.
Meanwhile, BRTC has proposed to set up four EV-charging stations for their buses at Joarsahara, Gazipur, and Narayanganj spending Tk 47.43 million, and the BRTA to install three charging stations at Tk15.46 million.
The road-transport corporation will also set up a recycling and disposal plant for the used EV batteries at its central workshop and maintenance depot in Gazipur at Tk 17.52 million.
A senior Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges official says this project will help reduce green-house gas and carbon emissions as "Bangladesh wants to step in EV era".
"The EV-charging stations will encourage the private sector, too, to go for setting up more stations and importing environment-friendly EVs for the city roads," he adds.
Asked about some "irrelevant" costs, a PC official said they were scrutinizing the proposed project seriously before giving the green signal to the project on the latter-day transport.
"If we find any irrelevant cost, we will definitely cut it from the DPP," he says about the project, proposed to complete by June 2026.

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