Having already missed three deadlines in starting construction, the proposed Dhaka elevated expressway is facing uncertainties again centring land acquisition.
Construction company Ital-Thai has recently sent a letter to the Bridges Division saying they could not start work unless they got final confirmation about land acquisition, sources said.
On September 29, while visiting the Shahjalal airport point of the expressway, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quder said land acquisition problems have been solved and the construction would start soon.
However, having visited several spots on the proposed route, the Dhaka Tribune reporter has not seen any activity that may suggest that the work has begun.
Sources said the work for building the first phase of the expressway from the airport to Banani in the capital, could not be started because of complication centring an 1.4-acre land in the Kuril area. At least six multi-storied buildings still stand on that land and of the owners had filed a petition with the High Court.
Project Director Kazi Mohammad Ferdous has also admitted that there is a problem. “We hope that the problem will be solved this month and construction work would start in January,” he told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
The work for the country’s first expressway was scheduled to be completed by this June.
In January 2011, the government signed an agreement with Bangkok-based Ital-Thai to build the 4-lane expressway at a cost of Tk8,703 crore under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme.
Soon after the signing, Ital-Thai reportedly fell into a fund crisis. It failed to convince financiers to get the funds needed for conducting the feasibility study; detailed design; soil test; assessing environmental impacts; and resettlement plan after land acquisition.
On April 3, 2011, groundwork began at a snail’s pace and at the end of that month, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid the foundation. Construction was scheduled to kick off in July 2011 and be completed in 42 months.
The proposed expressway starts at the Shahjalal airport and runs alongside the New Airport Road via Mohakhali, Tejgaon and Moghbazar to the Kamalapur Railway Station and connects with the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway near Kutubkhali via Golapbagh and Jatrabari.
The Ital-Thai Development Corporation Limited has entered a $1.062bn contract with the China Railway Construction Corporation to build the Dhaka elevated expressway.
“With help from the Bangladesh Army, we have almost resolved the problem centring land acquisition for the first phase. The financial problem has also been resolved through the agreement between CRCC and Ital-Thai,” Bridges Division Secretary Khandaker Anwarul Islam said yesterday.
