The Planning Commission (PC) has decided in principle to approve the Jamuna Railway Bridge construction project, reducing its cost by about Tk 3.0 billion.
Sources said the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) reviewed the project on Tuesday, and gave its nod to the development project proposal (DPP) with some changes.
They said Tk 97.40 billion has been approved as cost of the project, which was estimated Tk 100 billion in an initial feasibility study, done by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The Bangladesh Railway (BR) officials said cost of the project has been reduced, as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) recommended constructing the bridge with steel girders instead of concrete after conducting feasibility study afresh.
They said the previous ADB-conducted feasibility study recommended constructing the 4.8-kilometre-long bridge with concrete, for which foundation would have been heavy.
The sources said PEC discussed various issues regarding the government funding, and recommended reducing the number of transports as well as acquisition and renting rates of lands, to be handed over by the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) as per a memorandum of understanding signed with BR.
BBA is supposed to hand over 162 hectares of land temporarily and around 18 hectares permanently to BR to construct the railway bridge.
"There are not many changes in the DPP, except in its government funding part," said an official.
He said as the JICA guideline has been followed for the project, there was no problem in formulating the DPP.
BR will soon send the DPP to PC by incorporating the proposed changes, recommended in the PEC meeting on Tuesday, the official added.
BR has taken the Jamuna Railway Bridge construction project to establish rail connectivity between the country's eastern and western regions for increasing the number of train movement and their speed.
According to the feasibility study, the bridge will be constructed on the western side of the Bangabandhu Bridge along with 0.3 km viaduct on both sides, 6.2 km railway approach embankment and 6.5 km loop and slidings. It will have dual-gauge double-track provision.
The new bridge is likely to increase cross-border activities by shortening distance. It will also facilitate Trans-Asian railway line, which will improve the country's rail-link with India and Myanmar by increasing the number of heavy load train service.
The JICA study recommended constructing the dedicated railway bridge 300 metre upstream, parallel to the existing Bangabandhu Bridge.
JICA signed an agreement with the Economic Relations Division (ERD) last month to finance Tk 77.24 billion in two parts, including US$ 20 million as engineering service loan.
BR officials said the organisation has already started detailed design work to construct the rail bridge for greater passenger and freight train services within the country and beyond.
The sources added that JICA's strong reservation over corruption issue and recommendation for checking corruption in all stages of implementation of the project were incorporated in the DPP.
As per JICA's recommendation, BR has already prepared anti-corruption measures based on four principles - transparency, good governance, prevention of misconduct, and accountability and control.
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