Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha has planned to connect the Gulshan Lake project area with Hatirjheel with a service road, officials said.
Rajuk’s executive engineer Nurul Islam said that a four-lane, two-way road would be built from Baridhara Circle connecting Hatirjheel at the Police Plaza Concord via Marium Tower, Shahajadpur and Badda under the Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara Lake Improvement and Beautification Project.
Nurul said that Rajuk had taken the project in 2010 and it was scheduled to be completed by this June. But Rajuk now expects to complete the project by 2016, now involving an estimated cost of Tk 410 crore.
Rajuk’s member (development) M Mahbubul Alam told New Age that the project was delayed because of unending encroachment taking place on the project area.
He said that the project had been taken to free the lake from being grabbed and facilitate water retention in the lake along with some beautification aspects.
He said that cases pending with courts and subsequent delay in land acquisition had held back the project.
Mahbubul said that some of the link roads of the project would be extended and sidewalk would be built along the lake after the reclamation of the land of the lake dismantling illegal structures. There will also be some recreational facilities.
He said that the existing pipe drains and culverts would be extended into something like the Banani bridge.
Nurul said that Rajuk would beautify the area by constructing driveways, footpaths, walkways and viewing decks.
He said that the design approved when the project was taken had a driveway between the Gulshan Shooting Club and the Mariam Tower at Baridhara.
He said that they would demolish the Gulshan–Sahajadpur connecting road and build a bridge there. The small bridge by Gawsul Azam Masjid would be extended.
Iqbal Habib, chief architect of Bhitti Sthapati Brinda which is the consulting firm for both the Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara Lake Improvement and Beautification Project and the Hatirjheel Combined Development Project, said that once the project areas were connected, people could go from Moghbazar to Kalachandpur by boat.
He said the Gulshan Lake water would be flow into Hatirjheel after treatment.
In 2001, the Gulshan-Baridhara-Banani Lake area was declared as an ecologically critical area.
The High Court directed the government to stop the dumping of wastes into the lake and ordered demarcation of the entire lake and construction of walkways.
-With New Age input
