Akhaura-Sylhet railways project was among those projects for which Dhaka and Beijing signed a memorandum of understanding during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Dhaka visit in October 2016 for implementing the project with Chinese assistance. Accordingly, China was supposed to finance 66.16 per cent of the total project cost, and China Railway Construction Bridge Engineering Bureau Group Co Ltd (CRBG) was appointed as the contractor to implement the project. Reportedly, side by side, there was another move by the Railways Ministry to find an alternative financier for the project, necessitated for converting the existing Akhaura-Sylhet metre-gauge (MG) railroad into a dual-gauge (DG) one.
The Economic Relations Division (ERD) under the Finance Ministry, however, has warned the Railways Ministry saying that a “unilateral” decision to cancel China’s funding for a railway project could deteriorate existing bilateral relations between the two countries. The move to find an alternative financier for the project, for converting the existing Akhaura-Sylhet MG railroad into a DG one, may also create problems in the future, when trying to undertake projects with Chinese funds. ERD, which deals with foreign-funding related issues also mentioned that the Chinese embassy in Dhaka had expressed concerns over the project on several occasions.
It is to be noted that ECNEC in April 2019 approved the project to convert the 225-km MG line into a 239-km DG line by June 2025, to improve rail link between the capital and Sylhet. However, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in October 2020 had formed a committee to review the negotiated contract prices of three projects involving China, which included the Akhaura-Sylhet one and DG Conversion. However, the third project– Joydevpur-Ishardi — has not been approved. The PMO reportedly directed BR to slash the cost of Akhaura-Sylhet project by Tk 3,354.31 crore. It also directed to slash the cost of two other projects. But contractors of all three projects declined to work with the reduced budget, BR document shows.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government in early last year informed Bangladesh that it would not fund the Joydevpur-Ishwardi project for a “lack of in-depth preliminary work and insufficient feasibility study”. We think the relevant functionaries of the government, especially railway high-ups, have to take up pragmatic policy decisions in the best interest of the existing bond of relationship between the two friendly countries.
