Staff Reporter :At last the construction work on the country’s first much-awaited Dhaka Elevated Expressway began in the city on Sunday. The expressway will connect Hazrat Shahajalal International Airport (HSIA) with Kutubkhali of Dhaka-Chittagong highway via Mohakhali, Tejgaon and Kamalapur. Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader inaugurated the construction work at Kaula adjacent to the HSIA at 11:30 in the morning, aiming to reduce traffic congestion in Dhaka city and its suburbs. The main road will be 21 kilometers in length. There will be two more roads of five kilometers along with the main road. One is from Manik Mia Avenue to Tejgaon Rail Crossing and the other will be from Nilkhet to Moghbazar, according to sources at Road Transport and Bridges Ministry. Later on the elevated expressway will be extended up to Narayanganj in South and Gazipur in North, they added.The elevated expressway is being constructed under public-private- partnership (PPP) initiative and it will be implemented in three phases. The Italian-Thai Development Corporation Limited signed contract with China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) for building the Dhaka Elevated Expressway. In the first phase, the expressway will be constructed from HSIA to Banani (7.45 kilometres), the second phase from Banani to Moghbazar (5.85 kilometre and the third and last phase from Moghbazar to Kutubkhali (6.43 kilometres) of Dhaka-Chittagong Highway.Earlier on April 30, 2011, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the construction of the 21-km expressway with a hope that it would be completed in three and a half years. “We are expecting that the construction work will be completed by 2018 with a cost of Tk 8940.18 crore,” the Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader told journalists. Using the elevated expressway, people will be able to reach Dhaka-Chittagong highway from the airport within a short time,” he said, adding the expressway will help ease the traffic congestion in the capital. “But we have to take up some more projects to deal with traffic jam,” the minister said. “Dhaka elevated expressway is the Bangladesh’s first project of its kind. It is one of the biggest infrastructure projects taken up by the incumbent government to ease traffic congestion in the capital,” he said. As the traffic congestion has taken a serious turn in the capital the government has opted for building an elevated expressway to get rid of the gridlock.Vehicular traffic is stranded at every traffic signal for unusually long periods and it takes hours to reach a place, which is not worth more than a few minutes. Vehicles using the elevated expressway will be charged. Private car, microbus, mini-bus, and utility vehicles are expected to be charged at Taka 125, bus and coaches at Taka 250 and truck at Taka 500 to Taka 750.
