The Communications Ministry on Sunday signed a contract with consultancy services to implement 20-kilomtre Bus Rapid Transit from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to Gazipur.
Under the Greater Dhaka Sustainable Urban Transport Project, besides the BRT corridor, an eight-lane Tongi bridge, seven flyovers and two bus depots would be constructed at a cost of Tk 2039.85 crore.
At the contract signing ceremony held at Sarak Bhaban, communications minister Obaidul Quader said that the project would be completed within 2016.
The project also includes procurement of 50 articulated buses, improvement of 141 access roads, construction of six markets in Gazipur and 20 kilometres walkway along the both sides of the BRT corridor.
The project is being jointly funded by Asian Development Bank, Agency France for Development, Global Environment Facility and the government of Bangladesh. The ADB, AFD and GEF would provide Tk 1650.7 crore for the project.
Roads and highways division chief engineer Aminur Rahman Lasker and consultant firm SMEC International Ptv Ltd representative John Thorpe signed the Tk 27.5 crore contract for Project Management Coordination and Capacity Building, Package – 1.
The project officials said that the BRT corridor would include 31 stations and two segregated traffic lanes per direction from the airport railway station terminal (km 0) to Deoara (Hossain Market, km 7.5) and one segregated lane per direction from there to Gazipur Terminal.
The greater Dhaka project was approved by ECNEC on November 20 last year. Its duration is from December 1, 2012 to December 1, 2016.
Names of the other consultant services are – SYSTRA SA, Brisbane City Enterprise Ptv Ltd, ACE Constants Ltd and Pathmark Associates Limited.
So far, the government signed loan agreements with ADB ($160 million), AFD ($45 million) and grant agreement with GEF ($4.6 million).
The contract signing function was attended, among others, by roads division secretary MAN Siddique.
newagebd
-With New Age input
