Dhaka city elevated expressway gets govt nod

The cabinet committee on economic affairs on Wednesday gave the go-ahead for constructing the proposed Dhaka City Elevated Expressway under Private Public Partnership initiative to ease traffic congestions in the capital.
‘We have asked the communications ministry to construct the elevated expressway after studying its feasibility study and inviting tenders for the project,’ finance minister AMA Muhith, who heads the committee, told reporters after a meeting.
He also said the elevated expressway will be constructed keeping the proposition of constructing an underground railway system in consideration so that there will be no problem in building a subway network.
The project for constructing about a 40-kilometre-long elevated expressway would cost US$ 1.231 billion or Tk 8,670 crore.
The proposed route will be from Zia International Airport to Jatrabarai, touching old airport, Sonargaon Hotel intersection, Magbazar, Malibag, New Market, Kataban, Gulshan and Kuril.
The elevated expressway which will be the first of its kind in Bangladesh will be built in three phases spanning over eight years from the date of commencement of the project.
In the first phase, some 20 kms route from Old Airport to Jatrabari through Magbazar Malibag and Sayedabad will be constructed at a cost of about Tk 6,700 crore while a 13 kms route from Kataban to Gulshan will be built in the second phase at a cost of about Tk 705.33 crore, sources in the finance ministry said.
Some 7 kms stretch of the elevated expressway from New Airport to Kuril Avenue at Banani will be built in third phase costing around Tk 1,218 crore.
‘We have also asked the communication ministry to consider a project to construct a subway from Gazipur to New Airport,’ Muhith added.
At least 30,000 vehicles will pass through the expressway every hour reducing traffic congestions significantly in the overpopulated city, according to the project proposal.
It is expected that the elevated expressway will provide a permanent solution to the huge traffic congestion in the capital city of 360 square km inhabiting around 14 million people. The city has only 330 kms of roads.
The officials said the elevated expressway will increase the average speed of the vehicles on the city roads significantly.
Sources in the traffic division of Dhaka Metropolitan police said the average speed of vehicles in Dhaka city is about 6 kms per hour while it is about 24 kms in New Delhi.
There are about 3,25,000 motorised vehicles plying on the roads everyday in Dhaka with around 200 vehicles hitting the roads everyday. Then there are an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 rickshaws in the city.
The concept of the elevated expressway first came up at talks during the Thai prime minister’s visit to Bangladesh in 2002. An Italian-Thai development company then conducted a pre-feasibility study and submitted its report the same year.
The cabinet committee meeting also assigned the bridge department of the communications ministry to hand over to the army the responsibilities of realising tolls and for maintenance of Bangabandhu Bridge.
The deal with Marganet International, appointed for maintenance and realising tolls of the bridge, expired in May, the minister said.
“We did not get any interested company even after floating tenders,” he said.
The meeting returned two proposals for setting up two jetties at Mongla port for further scrutiny.
Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury, law minister Shafiq Ahmed, communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, planning minister AK Khandaker and cabinet secretary MA Aziz, among others, were present at the meeting.

Courtesy of NewAgebd