What fate awaits Dhaka-Gazipur BRT?

Launched in 2012, the Dhaka-Gazipur Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project was supposed to be completed in 2016 but the corridor still awaits completion. When another rescheduling and allocation of Tk30 billion was sought lately for its completion, the Planning Commission rejected the request. The Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges instead assigned a high-level team from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) with the responsibility of recommending suggestions on the project's future. The BUET team has suggested the project's cancellation or in other words demolition. Interestingly, leading urban planners of the Bangladesh Planners Institute (BPI) opposes the BUET team's recommendations. They claim that demolition cost would be more than the expenditure on the remaining construction works for its completion. So it is better to complete the project instead of scrapping it. They also argue that the unused fund would be enough to do the job.
According to the BPI experts, 97 per cent of the project has been completed. They complain that the BUET team's recommendations were made on a partial study. In this connection they mention that 205 cities operate the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) systems worldwide but BRT systems have grown at a break-neck pace of approximately 383 per cent since 2000 'due to lower costs, faster implementation and easier expansion'. At the press conference hosted by the BPI, keynote presenter Dr M Mosleh Uddin Hasan further claims that the dedicated lanes can be opened for basic BRT operation within the next six to 12 months. Now this is intriguing as the opinions of BUET team and the claims made by the BPI are diagonally opposite and contradictory. If the long-delayed project is so close to be complete, why did the division of the ministry concerned sought an allocation of Tk30 billion? Again what made the BUET team to suggest outright scrapping of the project that is near completion?
That projects get delayed in this country is nothing new. It should not be the only criterion for cancellation of a project at this stage. If there are serious design flaws or the project was undertaken on imperfect feasibility study, it is a different issue. The reason why the BUET team made such recommendations should be made public. The government will be in a dilemma now that such claims and counter-claims have been made. It would be proper for the administration to bring the two sides together in order to arrive at a consensus about the future of the project.
The merit of BRT cannot be denied. Originally, the outlay on the BRT was Tk 42.68 billion only. This is far less than the Tk 334.72 billion spent on the metro rail from Uttara to Motijheel. On the count of expenditure and the delivery of service, BRT certainly has an edge over metro rail. It is not just enhanced mobility but its impact on urban restructuring, land use transformation and economic opportunities also counts. An earlier study carried out by the BUET's Urban and Regional Planning Department suggested development of 13 BRT corridors for six cities and towns. So, before deciding on demolition of the Dhaka-Gazipur BRT, a comprehensive review of the project should be carried out.