Two rly projects likely to be fast-track ones today

Padma bridge railway connectivity project and Dohazari-Cox's Bazar-Gundum railway project are set to be included in the fast-track projects as top monitoring committee of the projects meets today (Wednesday).
Official sources said the fast-track project monitoring committee will take the decision on inclusion of the two railway projects during its fourth meeting to be held at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
With this inclusion, the number of fast-track projects will be 10.
They said the fast-track monitoring taskforce committee earlier in February agreed to add the US$ 3.5 billion Padma bridge railway connectivity project to the fast-track project list to speed up the process of implementation.
The government has plans to run trains from the inaugural day of the country's longest bridge.
However, the decision to include single-line dual gauge railway track from Dohazari to Cox's Bazar via Ramu and Ramu to Gundum project was taken during the Executive Committee of National Economic Council meeting last week.
An official close to the monitoring committee told the FE that the proposed amendment to land acquisition act will also be high on the agenda.
Besides, the fourth meeting is expected to review the progress of the existing eight projects as several directives came from the committee's last meeting.
"Also, a proposal to name the Paira seaport as Paira deep-sea port may come up for discussion in the meeting," an official close to the meeting said preferring not to be named.
The directives that came from the last fast-track monitoring committee meeting included formation of project preparatory fund (PPF), submission of monitoring reports of all projects by IMED in every four months and simplification of the approval process of development project proposals.
The present fast-track projects include Padma Multipurpose Bridge, Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, Rampal Coal-fired Thermal Power Plant, Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project, Sonadia Deep Sea Port in Cox's Bazar, Liquefied Natural Gas Terminal Construction Project and Paira seaport.
The Bangladesh Railway would construct the 172-kilometre single-line broad-gauge railway line from Dhaka to Mawa-Bhanga-Jessore via under-construction Padma Bridge at a cost of Tk 349.89 billion by the year 2021.
A Chinese company -- China Railway Group Ltd (CREC) -- was selected for the rail link project on G-2-G (government-to-government) basis.
The cost of Dohazari to Cox's Bazar via Ramu and Ramu to Gundum project has also increased tenfold to Tk 180 billion from its original outlay of Tk 18.5 billion following increase of land price due to change of route.
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