The government is working on developing a mass transport system with specialised rapid bus service facility stretching from Gazipur to Sadarghat.
Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank will finance the project, officials said yesterday.
The disclosure came at a workshop organised by Roads and Highways Department (RHD) at a city hotel to discuss the inception report on a pilot project to develop Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line between Tongi and Gazipur.
BRT is an articulated, comfortable and rapid bus service that runs on a dedicated lane of the existing roads.
The RHD will start implementation of the 18-kilometre Tongi-Joydevpur BRT project by 2012 and complete it by the end of the following year mainly with finance from ADB, said Md Aminur Rahman, project director of Greater Dhaka Sustainable Urban Transport Corridor Project (GDSTC).
The government is also working on another BRT (line-3) from Uttara to Sadarghat.
SM Salehuddin, additional executive director of Dhaka Transport Coordination Board, told The Daily Star the pre-feasibility of the BRT-3 is done and it will be implemented with finance from the World Bank.
“Consultant and project director of the Uttara-Sadarghat BRT have been appointed,” said Salehuddin.
Syed Abul Hossain, communications minister, present at the workshop as chief guest, said the government is set to sign the concession agreement with the private investor of Dhaka Elevated Expressway (DEE) this December and start the construction work by early next year.
The Tongi-Joydevpur BRT will be a pilot project out of six routes identified by the consultant of GDSTC on the fringe of Dhaka city.
The ADB has allocated one million US dollars under Project Preparatory Technical Assistance to identify the best suitable routes for BRT, officials said.
