Metro rail by 2013
The government has decided to start construction of a subway in the capital in the middle of next year to be completed by 2013 to improve communication and ease the nagging traffic congestion.
The decision was taken at an inter-ministerial meeting on construction of metro rail and elevated expressway held at the communications ministry yesterday.
Overcoming the long bureaucratic wrangling, the meeting decided that feasibility study on construction of the subway will be funded by the government, meeting sources said.
Tender for the Tk 10 crore study will be floated next month. The study is likely to be started in December and completed by June next year.
The ambitious project for building a 60-km metro railway with an estimated cost of Tk 10,000 crore aims at carrying 4,000 people per hour adding a new dimension to city transport.
The underground railway system will be built on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis under the supervision of Bangladesh Railway (BR), meeting sources said.
“We want to start the task so that the next government finds it easy to complete it smoothly,” Communications Adviser Ghulam Quader told reporters after the meeting.
Yesterday's meeting was convened to resolve all problems relating to the subway construction.
Initiated in 2002, the feasibility study could not be started with the issue of its funding unresolved. The communications ministry wanted government funding of it while the planning ministry insisted on looking for foreign funds.
In August 2003, the BR sent a proposal to the planning ministry through the communications ministry to carry out the feasibility study using government's resources.
But an inter-ministerial meeting later decided that the decision in this regard should only be taken after finalisation of the Dhaka strategic transport plan (STP), which received government nod in February this year.
In October 2005, the railway sent another proposal to the planning ministry seeking Japanese assistance for the study. However, no further action was taken when Japan refused to fund the project.
The following year the same proposal sought government funding. In May 2006, the planning ministry returned the proposal, again suggesting the railway should find a donor for the study after approval of the STP.
Finally, in April this year, the communications ministry recommended the study could be undertaken using government money provided the funds are reimbursed in the form of a "success fee" from the winning bidder.
And the communications ministry sent this proposal to the planning ministry on July 13 for approval, sources at yesterday's meeting said.
After the meeting, Communications Secretary Mahbubur Rahman said, "To carry out the feasibility study, we don't need to depend on donors like World Bank or others."
Echoing his views, BR Director General (DG) Md Belayet Hossain said, “We have to finance the study.”
The project was delayed by years due to bureaucratic wrangling and lack of coordination among different agencies, railway officials said.
The communications adviser said there is no alternative to constructing the subway as soon as possible to increase mobility of people in the capital.
Meanwhile, a Board of Investment proposal had earlier said there would be six routes with 50 stations on the subway that would connect almost 80 percent of the city area.
But sources present at yesterday's meeting said the routes and stations might be changed after the feasibility study.
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