Governments fail to mobilise funds in 13 years
The fate of the Dhaka Integrated Flood Control Embankment-Eastern Bypass Road Multipurpose Project or the Eastern Bypass Project seems uncertain due to unavailability of funds nearly 13 years after it was approved.
Water Development Board (WDB) officials said over the years, they had to revise the massive project several times to reduce cost. “In inter-ministerial meetings, the higher authorities expressed doubt about availability of about Tk 2,667 crore for the project, and asked us to revise it again and again,” said a top WDB official.
On April 5 this year, an inter-ministerial meeting decided to shelve the project on grounds that funds could not be mobilised, he told The Daily Star.
The ambitious project, okayed by the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec) in 1998, envisaged building a 30-kilometre-long dyke-cum-bypass along the Turag and Balu rivers on the eastern fringe of the capital. The bypass was planned to encompass124 square km fast growing urban and semi-urban areas between Tongi railway bridge and Kanchpur bridge. Without the eastern bypass, a vast area remains unprotected from recurring floods.
“In a bid to revive the project, the water resources ministry recently asked us to give a summary of the project so that it can be taken up with the higher authorities,” said a senior engineer of the WDB. “We are now preparing the summary.”
Official sources said failing to find a financier for the project, the government had earlier asked the WDB to break up its components and distribute those also among Dhaka City Corporation, Rajuk, Department of Environment, and Roads and Highways Department for implementation.
Other sources however said the Eastern Bypass Project has been dropped from the government’s priority list with Capital River Dredging mega-project replacing it.
Besides protecting a vast area from floods, the project was meant to help expand the city and divert east and south-bound traffic from northern region of the country.
Contacted, WDB Chief Engineer (central zone) Md Humayun Kabir said work on the bypass project first began with the help of the Engineering Corps of Bangladesh Armed Forces in 1998 but never got through.
Thousands of landowners and real estate developers are now haphazardly filling up the low- lying areas on the eastern side of the capital.
