PM sees no damage to JS complex
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the modified metro rail route would not ruin the main architectural design of the parliament complex.
Hasina told the weekly cabinet meeting that the modified route would not cut through the preserved area of the structural masterpiece designed by Louis I Kahn in the early 1960s.
“The prime minister has seen the original map of the parliament complex. Not even an inch of it will fall on the metro route,” a cabinet minister quoted Hasina as saying.
Sheikh Hasina has directed her cabinet colleagues to show the original map to all lawmakers. The PM also said the modified route would benefit people more than the one originally planned.
On Speaker Abdul Hamid’s recent comment that he would not allow the route to run through the parliament premises, Hasina said the Speaker had made an emotional remark without seeing the map.
The government has recently accepted the Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) proposal to realign the metro line through Khamarbari. Under the original plan, the route was to have run through Bijoy Sarani.
The BAF argues that a metro rail line through Bijoy Sarani would obstruct its flight operations from the Tejgaon airfield.
The decision to change the course of the metro rail was officially conveyed to the project’s sole financier, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), after the premier endorsed the controversial realignment.
Experts involved in the project say if the route is modified, an estimated 55 metres of the JS complex will be needed to set up pillars for the metro line.
Jica has pledged 80 percent of the estimated $2.7 billion cost for the construction of the 20.1km line stretching from Uttara third phase to Bangladesh Bank in Motijheel.
-With The Daily Star input
