Draft feasibility study on Dhaka Bypass Highway complete

Shamsul Huda | Published: September 12, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

A draft feasibility study for constructing 50-kilometre long Dhaka Bypass Highway under public-private partnership (PPP) has been submitted to the office of the Mass Rapid Transit Bangladesh (MRTB).
After a final checking, the PPP office is going to issue request for qualification (RFQ) by the end of the current year.
Sources in the PPP office said, after final approval of the draft study, they will issue RFQ next month to find private investors.
The government's Road and Highways Department (RHD) has taken the initiative to build the Dhaka Bypass toll highway under PPP to solve future vehicle pressure through bypassing the route from Joydevpur to Madanpur.
The estimated private investment will be around $400 million.
Syed Afsor Uddin, chief executive officer of the PPP cell under the Prime Minister's office, said, as per the government's priority, the RHD, with support of the PPP office, is currently planning and designing the four-lane Joydevpur-Devogram-Bhulta-Madanpur (N105) road known as Dhaka Bypass Road.
He said the by-pass road is expected to remove a major bottleneck in transportation and open up a new area of economic and industrial development.
MMM Group, a Canadian consulting firm, and many others are working for the project's feasibility study in cooperation with the PPP office.
The by-pass PPP highway project includes a four-lane toll road and a two-lane service road.
The CEO said, "We are going for marketing of the PPP project in October and November and will issue RFQ by December this year and the request for proposal in the year 2015."
According to sources, the by-pass highway would give a faster access to the vehicles moving from Gazipur to Dhaka-Chittagong and Dhaka-Sylhet highways.
As per the feasibility study, vehicle pressure from Gazipur towards the southern parts of the country would increase by more than 35 per cent in next five years. To ease the pressure, the by-pass road would give access to the vehicles moving from north to south bypassing the capital city.
An official in the RHD said, "We have chosen PPP in constructing the by-pass as it is estimated that private investment would be viable in building the toll access roads as investors would get return in more than 20 years' time."