Extra fees for highway expansion approved

The cabinet committee on purchase yesterday raised the consultancy fees for the highway expansion project by 71 percent, as the consultant would have to stay longer for the delay in project completion.

The committee at a meeting chaired by Finance Minister AMA Muhith increased the fees to Tk 49.65 crore from the initial Tk 29.05 crore.

The timeframe for the project's completion, including the defect liability period, has been extended by a year to December 2016, which led to the consultant to demanding additional fees.

In 2010, a joint venture of Consulting Engineering Services (India) Pvt Ltd and Dev Consultants Ltd (Bangladesh) were appointed consultants for overseeing the work of 10 road packages and construction of two bridges on the highway.

The average progress of the 10 road packages is 51.47 percent and the two bridges 59.2 percent, according to the proposal.

The project has been delayed due to a hold-up in Sinohydro Corporation's side, which bagged seven of the 10 road packages. The project will now take another year for completion.

The total project cost has already been revised twice to Tk 3,190 crore, but the additional consultancy fees and the extension in project's tenure means the outlay will have to be revised again.

Also at yesterday's meeting, a proposal to procure a 30 megawatt (MW) solar park power plant from ETERN-CCCE-Hareon Consortium got the green light.

The government will buy a unit of electricity from the firm at Tk 13.18 for next the 20 years at a cost of around Tk 1,046 crore. Three companies participated in the tender and the winning company got the job as the lowest bidder.

According to the proposal, 10 percent of the total power generation or 2,000 MW will come from renewable energy by 2020. At present, 370 MW of electricity is being generated from the source.

Besides, three companies have already been given work for production of 163 MW electricity.