The cabinet committee on public purchase is going to approve a proposal to rehabilitate of 51.5km Kulaura-Shahbazpur section of Bangladesh Railway.
The railway ministry’s proposal under India’s $1bn credit line will be placed before the committee on Wednesday, said ministry sources.
Indian rail construction firm Balaji Railroad Systems Ltd (BARSYL) will implement the project.
“Kulaura-Shahbazpur railway section rehabilitation project will be redesigned and remodelled under the Indian credit line,” project director M Shaidul Islam told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He said the project implementation cost would increase because of developing double-line rail track and expansion of six stations along with the Kulaura-Shahbazpur section.
Kulaura-Shahbazpur project works will end in 2019, he said.
Meanwhile, a shortlist of companies has been prepared to appoint as project management consultant.
A total of six Indian companies have submitted expression of interest for the task while the proposal evaluation committee shortlisted four firms.
They are BARSYL, STUP Consultant Pvt Ltd, Aarvee Associates and TATA Consulting Engineers Ltd.
Later, three companies except Tata Consulting Engineers submitted the technical and financial proposal.
From the proposal, only BARSYL gets responsive as the consultant as the rest of the two companies were made non-responsive for selecting same persons as deputy team leader (national).
The evaluation committee’s later proposed the deal at the rate of Tk23.68 crore for hiring the consultant firm.
Of the amount, around Tk18.95 crore is the negotiated deal rate and around Tk4.74 crore is from income tax and value added tax.
After the commissioning of the line, an important connectivity between Sylhet, Comilla and Indian state of Assam will be re-established, officials expected.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi jointly laid the foundation stone of the project during the latter’s recent visit to Dhaka.
