Two bodies formed to expedite Uttara apartment project

The government has formed two committees in connection with expediting of the Uttara Apartment Project.
The project is to be partially implemented by a Malaysian consortium, following an amended memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the governments of the two countries.
The two committees are technical committee and commercial negotiation committee.
Rajuk member (development) Naim Ahmed Khan is the convener of the technical committee which will comprise civil and electrical engineers from the Public Works Department (PWD), representatives from the Department of Architecture (DOA) and the Civil Engineering Department representatives from the Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology (BUET).
The main committee or the commercial negotiation committee will be headed by the Rajuk chairman. Other members of the committee include the PWD Chief Engineer, the DOA Chief Architect, the Rajuk member (development) and a BUET representative.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs gave approval in principle in its 5th meeting held last month to construction of about 8,400 flats in more or less 100 buildings in the B and C blocks of the Uttara Apartment Project under a G2G agreement.
Two Malaysian national construction companies will execute the project works in the light of the MoU under a consortium with their financial arrangements using Industrialised Building System (IBS) in design-build-transfer method.
Ministry sources said Minister Eng Mosharraf Hossain, however, has instructed the committees to complete all the necessary process to get approval of the cabinet committee within next two months, so that the Malaysian companies can start the project work soon.
But the whole process depends on submission of a proposal by the Malaysian government to the Rajuk with necessary technical and financial aspects of the project, cost, hand-over time, mode of payment, and all other nitty-gritty of the project.
Talking to the FE Eng Mosharraf Hossain said the economic affairs committee has approved the project and now it will go to the purchase committee.
The Malaysian companies will work with its own finance and they will hand over the buildings in 30 months after starting work.
Rajuk chief engineer Emdadul Islam said as he was abroad, he did not know much about the progress of the project.
The project, aimed at providing housing facilities to lower and middle income people, was approved by the ECNEC in October 2011 with an estimated cost of about Tk 90.31 billion. Under the project, 240 buildings were to be constructed in A, B and C blocks within five years.
The number of buildings was later reduced to 179 of which 79 buildings of A block will be constructed by the Bangladeshi developers in conventional method.
Earlier, a total of 20,160 flats were to be built in three blocks. But some construction firms including those of two influential lawmakers of the ruling party failed to make any headway after getting the work order. This delayed the project.
The government later initiated fresh bidding for block A and appointed new contractors who are now working on a limited scale.
The government first signed the MoU in 2011 with the Malaysian government for implementing some projects in infrastructure development and housing sector under G2G arrangement including construction of buildings of B and C block in the Uttara Apartment Project.