Reza Mahmud :
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project connecting Dhaka’s international airport with neighbouring city of Gazipur has become an example of intolerable public pains due to its dilapidated state and limitless slow construction work.
Experts said the mega project has been taken without proper feasibility tests and ignoring measures of containing public sufferings in the construction work.
As a result, they said, the 5-year project tenure has been extended to eight years. So far, progress of the project is only 63.27 per cent while the delays increased the project cost by 109 per cent.
The project officials are not held accountable for the delays and increase of the project cost, but, the people will have to pay for the additional budget.
In addition, there takes place unbearable traffic congestion on the dilapidated Airport-Gazipur Road as the under-implementation project narrowed the busy highway.
When contacted, Iqbal Habib, a renowned Architect, Urban Planner and Joint-Secretary, Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (BAPA) told The New Nation on Wednesday, “The mega project has not started with proper feasibility tests. The authority totally ignored measures to mitigate public sufferings created by the implementation work of it.”
He said, the authority should take it as a bitter example and be aware in case of preparing new mega projects plan.
Contacted, Adil Mohammed Khan, Associate Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning also General Secretary of Bangladesh Institute of Planners told The New Nation, “The people have been suffering for 10 years an account of the delaying BRT project as the road is full of different sized potholes.”
He said the authority responsible for monitoring and curbing public sufferings from the project has either no proper capability or has no honesty to contain sufferings.
Sources said, the 20.5-kilometre bus corridor would allow people to reach Dhaka from Gazipur in 35-40 minutes, a journey that now takes about 1.5 hours and can go up to four hours.
The project was taken up in November 2012 for completion by December 2016 at a cost of Tk 2,037.9 crore.
But it got delayed due to various reasons including changes in work scope and design, waterlogging in the project areas.
The project is being jointly funded by the government, the Asian Development Bank, the French Development Agency and the Global Environment Facility.
It has been gone through four revisions, with its total cost now estimated to be Tk 4,268.3 crore.
The current deadline is June 2022, meaning another revision is in the offing.
But the authority is saying the project may end by September next year for inauguration by December in the year.
The overall progress of the project at present is 63.27 percent, said Shafiqul Islam, Managing Director of Dhaka Bus Rapid Transit Company that would implement, operate and manage the BRT, during a press conference at the BRT office in Uttara on September 9.
As per the schedule, the project would be completed by September 2022.
To a query about the delay, Shafiqul Islam said, after completion of detailed design and tender, the contractors started the main physical work only in 2018, six years after the project’s starting.
