Design by next year
Staff Correspondent
The government in the first meeting of the cabinet committee on purchase yesterday appointed a consultant for construction of the Padma Bridge in line with the ruling Awami League’s one of the major election pledges.
New Zealand-based Maunsell AECOM Ltd has been appointed as consultant for preparing design of the bridge. The company will get Tk 114 crore as consultation fee.
According to the contract, the preparation of design has to be completed by the year 2010.
After the meeting, Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain told the newsmen that the construction work of the bridge will be completed within a short time so that they can open it during their tenure.
Asked what action to be taken by the government if any corruption is found in the purchasing process, finance minister AMA Muhith said, government will try to curb corruption at the top level though there is a scope of doing corruption in the process of making proposal on the bridge.
But he said government will try to prepare the papers in the inter-ministerial meetings instead of preparing those in a single ministry to curb the scope for doing corruption.
Muhith said, “Corruption doesn’t occur at any particular level, corruption is found at the lowest to the top most level in administration. So, we will try to combat corruption at the top.”
The estimated cost for construction of the Padma Bridge is $ 1800 million. According to the Economic Relations Division (ERD) report, the World Bank has made an initial commitment to provide $ 300 million, Islamic Development Bank (IDB) $ 300 million, Asian Development Bank (ADB) $ 350 million while Japan would provide $ 200 million.
The total commitment stands at 1150 million US dollars while the financing gap is $ 650 million.
The proposal for the bridge says after completion of the construction of the bridge, the GDP would be increased by 1.2 per c ent while the activities of Benapole and Mongla land ports would be increased further.
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
