The government is set to have a detailed designing of the dedicated Jamuna rail bridge for greater passenger and freight train services within the country and beyond.
Officials said Bangladesh Railway authorities have begun the preparation after the project's Japanese financier hinted at funding consultancy part.
They said a fact-finding mission of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) agreed to provide Tk 1.5 billion for the detailed design work on the 4.8-kilometre-long railway bridge after fruitful meetings with the Ministry of Railway and BR in mid-September.
"It is more or less sure that Japan is providing its support on the detailed design as 'engineering service loan'. But final decision will come after the appraisal mission's visit in November,"said one of them.
He said the mission had held series of meetings with the officials of the rail ministry and BR since September 13 and wrapped up those by formulating minutes of discussion (MoD) on September 17.
However, sources said JICA has strong reservation on the corruption issue and recommended checking those in all stages of implementation of the project, named Jamuna Railway Bridge Construction project.
They also asked BR to follow national integrity strategy with additional measures to check corruption-an issue on which a consortium of international donors led by the World Bank had withdrawn from the Padma Bridge project.
It is learnt that the issue of corruption gets highlighted in the BR project following reports on estimating exorbitant project cost of the JRBD project in the development project proposal (DPP).
The BR sent the first DPP to the Planning Commission few months ago, showing the total cost of the project at Tk 100 billion.
Official sources said the cost was estimated as per feasibility study but actual cost of the Jamuna rail-bridge project will be determined on completion of detailed design work.
They said as per the JICA recommendation, the BR has already prepared anti-corruption measures based on four principles - transparency, good governance, prevention of misconduct, and accountability and control.
The BR is now preparing technical assistance proposal for the bridge project based on the decision of the wrap-up meeting.
The JICA mission, led by Deputy Director of South Asia Division Yoko Takebayashi, had held series of meetings since September 13 till September 17.
Earlier, the mission members had visited the construction site being planned 300 metres upstream of the exiting Jamuna bridge named Bangabandhu Bridge.
The government took the initiative to construct the dedicated railway bridge across the mighty river after it found cracks in the existing road-cum-rail bridge due to operation of train beyond the bridge's capacity.
For that reason, trains through railway part of the Bangabandhu Bridge run within limited speed and allowable weight.
But there will be heavy load of train service when the ESCAP-proposed Trans-Asian Railway is made into a reality under the regional connectivity concept.      Â
   smunima@yahoo.com
Design soon for Jamuna rail bridge
Munima Sultana | Published: September 28, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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