An Australia-New Zealand-Japan-Bangladesh joint venture is likely to get the consultancy job to provide technical assistance for detailed study and design for the Dhaka-Chittagong expressway.
The government has planned to build the expressway exclusively for local exporters and importers carrying goods at high toll to earn large amount of revenues.
According to a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank, about 90% of the country’s total imports and exports are transported through the Dhaka-Chittagong highway.
The appointment of a consultant had been delayed by four months as consulting firms were at loggerheads with the Roads and Highways Division over the design of the proposed expressway, said a senior official of the Communications Ministry. The RHD wanted to make an extra design of the main bridge, he added.
Due to intervention of the Asian Development Bank, the foreign joint venture firms had shown interest in taking the job under package I. The Communications Ministry sent its proposal to the cabinet committee on public purchase for approval which is likely to be placed on Sunday, the official said.
Roads Division Secretary MAN Siddique said the consultancy firms would start work soon as the ADB had finalised negotiations with them.
On March 13 last year, the cabinet committee on economic affairs gave its nod for a six-lane Dhaka-Chittagong expressway under public-private partnership.
As per the ministry’s proposal, three consultancy firms would be appointed for the construction of the expressway and the RHD had selected Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation International Pty Ltd of Australia in the joint venture with Oriental Consultants of Japan in association with the Association Consulting Engineers Consultants Ltd of Bangladesh and Castalia Ltd of New Zealand.
The consultant firms will be appointed for Tk83.22 crore. The technical assistance project for detailed study and design of the Dhaka-Chittagong expressway was approved on April 4 last year at a cost of Tk97.87 crore and the work was supposed to start in March last year and complete in August 2016.
According to the main proposal, if the Dhaka-Chittagong expressway is built on an elevated level, its cost would be $6.1bn. If it is constructed at ground level, the cost would be $2.2bn. The expressway would be built under build-own-operate-transfer system.
According to an ADB study conducted a couple of years ago, 60% of vehicles using the highway are goods carriers while 27% heavy vehicles carry passengers. The number of vehicles on the route would increase 1.5 times or double in the next five years.
The study also said it took around 8-10 hours and sometimes even more to go the 250km distance on the highway. It also suggested constructing a four-lane highway by 2016, a six-lane by 2027 and an eight-lane expressway by 2034.
