Badrul Ahsan :
The Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) has completed only about 60 per cent of development work of Purbachal New Town Project in two decades of its inception creating frustration among the plot allottees.
RAJUK, the city development authority of Bangladesh, undertook its largest urban development project in 1995 to lessen the growing pressure of housing in the capital through building a modern city on 6,150 acres of land between the rivers Balu and Sitalakhya, 16 kilometres off the zero point in Dhaka city.
Officials, development experts and urban planners have attributed such an inordinate delay in the project implementation to wrong development plan, frequent changes in the design and other procedures.
The inordinate delay is not only causing waste of valuable time but also public funds, as the initial cost of the project amounting to Tk 33.0 billion (3300 crore) was revised in 2010 upwards to Tk 77.0 billion, marking 133.3 per cent increase with the inclusion
of utility infrastructure, they said. According a high official of RAJUK, the development authority has recently changed the concept of Purbachal New Town Project to make it the country’s first ‘smart city’ without any feasibility study spreading fear among the allottees that the new decision will further prolong completion of the project.
He said the change in the concept was made following an instruction of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that the project should follow a ‘uni-duct’ system. ‘Uni-duct’ is an underground single channel system of all utility lines, including power, gas, water, sewerage and solid waste.
When contacted, Rajuk Chief Engineer Md. Hafizur Rahman Munshi told The New Nation yesterday that they would build a ‘smart city’ at the Purbachal New Town and talked with different interested foreign groups in this connection.
“Although the new decision will require some more time to complete the project, it will help making the project to an international standard,” he said.
Replying to a query, he said there will be no problem with executing the concept with the existing infrastructure.
Additional Project Director Engineer Ujjwal Mallick said that they had already handed over 12,000 out of 25,000 plots to the allottees in sectors 01, 13, 11, 04, 05, 23, 17, part of 09 and 14 and planned to hand over more under sectors 02 and 08 in December next.
“Now, we’ll follow the concept of ‘smart city’ in the project like Singapore. There will be no utility lines overhead and the city will use digital technologies to enhance quality and performance of urban services to reduce costs,” he said.
“So, the implementation of the modern concept may take further time extension to complete development of the project,” he informed.
Farhad Hossain, a plot allottee of Purbachal New Town Project, expressing frustration over repeated failure of timeframe by RAJUK to hand over the plots said it is another conspiracy of a section of government officials for their own interest.
“The government was supposed to hand over his plot by 2012 but they have adopted another new concept in 2015 — three years after the final dateline of hand over,” he said.
“None knows how many years the new project will take to conclude.”
Meanwhile, talking about the issue, architect Mubasshar Hussain, an urban planner, was very critical of the activities of the RAJUK, saying that frequent changes made in the design and other procedures by the development authority on a regular basis in favour of a vested quarter led to the delay.
There were 15,294 plots for the Purbachal project initially, but the number had later been increased thrice (6,000, 1,743 and 1,963).
The Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) has completed only about 60 per cent of development work of Purbachal New Town Project in two decades of its inception creating frustration among the plot allottees.
RAJUK, the city development authority of Bangladesh, undertook its largest urban development project in 1995 to lessen the growing pressure of housing in the capital through building a modern city on 6,150 acres of land between the rivers Balu and Sitalakhya, 16 kilometres off the zero point in Dhaka city.
Officials, development experts and urban planners have attributed such an inordinate delay in the project implementation to wrong development plan, frequent changes in the design and other procedures.
The inordinate delay is not only causing waste of valuable time but also public funds, as the initial cost of the project amounting to Tk 33.0 billion (3300 crore) was revised in 2010 upwards to Tk 77.0 billion, marking 133.3 per cent increase with the inclusion
of utility infrastructure, they said. According a high official of RAJUK, the development authority has recently changed the concept of Purbachal New Town Project to make it the country’s first ‘smart city’ without any feasibility study spreading fear among the allottees that the new decision will further prolong completion of the project.
He said the change in the concept was made following an instruction of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) that the project should follow a ‘uni-duct’ system. ‘Uni-duct’ is an underground single channel system of all utility lines, including power, gas, water, sewerage and solid waste.
When contacted, Rajuk Chief Engineer Md. Hafizur Rahman Munshi told The New Nation yesterday that they would build a ‘smart city’ at the Purbachal New Town and talked with different interested foreign groups in this connection.
“Although the new decision will require some more time to complete the project, it will help making the project to an international standard,” he said.
Replying to a query, he said there will be no problem with executing the concept with the existing infrastructure.
Additional Project Director Engineer Ujjwal Mallick said that they had already handed over 12,000 out of 25,000 plots to the allottees in sectors 01, 13, 11, 04, 05, 23, 17, part of 09 and 14 and planned to hand over more under sectors 02 and 08 in December next.
“Now, we’ll follow the concept of ‘smart city’ in the project like Singapore. There will be no utility lines overhead and the city will use digital technologies to enhance quality and performance of urban services to reduce costs,” he said.
“So, the implementation of the modern concept may take further time extension to complete development of the project,” he informed.
Farhad Hossain, a plot allottee of Purbachal New Town Project, expressing frustration over repeated failure of timeframe by RAJUK to hand over the plots said it is another conspiracy of a section of government officials for their own interest.
“The government was supposed to hand over his plot by 2012 but they have adopted another new concept in 2015 — three years after the final dateline of hand over,” he said.
“None knows how many years the new project will take to conclude.”
Meanwhile, talking about the issue, architect Mubasshar Hussain, an urban planner, was very critical of the activities of the RAJUK, saying that frequent changes made in the design and other procedures by the development authority on a regular basis in favour of a vested quarter led to the delay.
There were 15,294 plots for the Purbachal project initially, but the number had later been increased thrice (6,000, 1,743 and 1,963).
