Friday, Jan 21, 2011
Gulf News
Signs $1.25b deal for construction of elevated road as city struggles with economic losses caused by congestion
Dubai Bangladesh on Wednesday signed a $1.25 billion (Dh4.6 billion) deal with Italian-Thai Public Development Company (ITD) to build an elevated expressway in the next three years in Dhaka to help alleviate its notorious traffic congestion.
“It [expressway] is a long cherished demand of the people to get relief from nagging traffic congestion in this busy city,” communication minister Syed Abdul Hussain told media as officials signed the agreement with the foreign firm for the construction of the four-lane 21-kilometre expressway with additional 10 kilometre links.
Officials said that the ele-vated expressway would link Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the north of the capital to Kutubkhali in the southeast. It will connect with a highway leading to Chittagong.
The expressway will have five kilometre intersections at two mid-points linking major streets in the capital.
The project will be funded by a public-private partnership in which the builder and the government will bear the cost in a 73:27 ratio.
ITD will benefit from the tolls paid by vehicles using the infrastructure, before handing over the finished product to the authorities in 2039.
Earlier, a Communication Ministry spokesman said that ITD won the contract in competitive bidding, whereby it seeks to build the expressway in 42 months while charging vehicles 125-750 taka (Dh6.46-Dh38.7) to use it.
The development came after the government announced plans to build six other flyovers — construction of three of which is already under way — at a cost of more than $300 million.
Authorities intend to connect these flyovers with the new expressway. According to a Roads and Highways Department report, road congestion results in delayed traffic movement for 7.5 hours in Dhaka daily, resulting in huge economic losses. Fuel worth 100 billion taka is lost annually, an amount which is equivalent to one-third of the country’s annual development expenditure.
Solutions
Residents of Dhaka said that the traffic jams were increasing daily. A government order this week to reschedule work hours — by splitting office timings under different categories — produced little respite from the situation.
According to several reports, Dhaka has only about seven to eight per cent of road infrastructure compared with 25 per cent required according to international standards.
Roads and Highways officials said that at least 700,000 registered vehicles were operating in Dhaka, home to 13 million, and demography experts fear the figure might double over the next 20 years.
Corbis
View from the top
Dhaka’s Mirpur Road near the New Market. Congestion results in loss of fuel worth 100 billion taka annually, an amount equivalent to one-third of the country’s annual development expenditure.
By Anisur Rahman?Correspondent
Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.
