Govt to upgrade 6km road to Rampal plant
The government plans to convert from two to four lanes a road from the Rampal power plant in Bagerhat to Babubari, which falls on the Khulna-Mongla highway, to ease transportation of heavy machinery to the plant.
Toma Construction won the Tk 119.55 crore work beating four bidders. The government will bear the cost of the project, for which a 65-acre land has already been acquired.
The construction company will also build two separate slow lanes on both sides of the road as per the directives of the prime minister for movement of the slow-moving vehicles.
Toma will also construct bridges and culverts, set electric lights and do the road safety works.
The Rampal 1,320 MW project faced serious opposition from environmentalists after being initiated in 2010.
Amid widespread protest about the location of the plant, the India-Bangladesh joint venture in March 2016 awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract to Indian company Bhel for the $1.5 billion project.
The government would go ahead with the construction of the Rampal plant near the Sundarbans, Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, prime minister's energy affairs adviser, said at a function at Bidyut Bhaban last month.
The government will also take measures to mitigate adverse effects, if necessary, upon a strategic environmental assessment (SEA), he said.
He made the comment a day after Unesco made it clear that no large-scale industrial or infrastructural development should be allowed to proceed in the vicinity of the Sundarbans before Bangladesh carried out the SEA for its south-west region, news agency BSS reported on August 1.
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