The hi-tech park at Kaliakoir in Gazipur district would take nearly four years to be developed since the government approved a contract signing proposal early last month.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs approved the proposal of Summit Industrial and Mercantile Corporation (Pvt) Ltd (SIMCL) and Indian firm Infinity on November 11 to develop two blocks of the project under a Public-Private Partnership initiative.
Bangladesh Hi-tech Park Authority is waiting for the approval document to go ahead, said a senior ICT Division official.
“Once we receive it (formal document of the approval), steps will be taken to proceed,” Hosne Ara Begum, managing director of the authority, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“We learned from media that the cabinet committee approved the proposal, but no official information regarding it is yet to reach us,” she added.
She said the company, which is going to get the job, will require around four years to develop two blocks.
SIMCL and Infinity will get blocks 2 and 5, and the deal will be signed for 40 years time. The park will have a total of five blocks.
According to the proposal, the areas of two blocks are 62 acres and 29 acres respectively in a total of 132.8 hectares of land.
ICT Ministry sources said the development works of block 3 and 4 are also going to be awarded to another local firm Fiber@home. Block 1 will be given to two firms- Fiber@home and Summit Communications Limited.
The hi-tech park authority will provide the company a design, but the company can have it modified by their own architects with permission from the authority.
Hosne Ara Begum said they have completed their task – developing roads inside the boundary, setting up power lines and water and sewerage system.
The developers are supposed to run a three-star hotel inside the park which, a feasibility study says, will create more than 40,000 ICT sector jobs once it starts operation.
According to the proposal, SIMCL and Infinity will invest $114.56m for developing block 2 and $93.33m for block 5 in next 10 years. The contract with the two firms might be extended for another 20 years on the basis of performance.
The government started the project in 1999, with officials concerned blaming the sluggish pace on frequent shifts in government decisions and interference from the World Bank, which would provide Tk236 crore for the project.
In 1999, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decided to establish the park on 232 acres of land at the Kaliakoir Surface Satellite Station.
However, the then BNP-led government did not carry on with the project, while Science and ICT Ministry had initiated a new project at Kaliakoir in 2004, where they did nothing other than acquiring land.
Cabinet committee approves a joint venture for two blocks.
