The government plans to spend more funds on the development of the Dhaka-Sylhet Highway to a four-lane one than it did on other similar projects.
The nearly Tk 170 billion proposed project is set to be tabled for approval by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council on Tuesday after it got the go-ahead from the Planning Commission’s Project Evaluation Committee, officials said.
Md Mamun-Al-Rashid, a member of the commission’s Physical Infrastructure Division, said they analysed the feasibility and cost of the project before finalising the decision to forward it to the ECNEC.
The officials have proposed an estimated cost of Tk 169.18 billion for the 210-kilometre highway, the second highest among four-lane highways with over Tk 800 million per kilometre.
On Nov 27 last year, the ECNEC cleared a proposal to construct a 48.5 kilometres long four-lane highway connecting Jhenaidah and Jashore with a total estimated cost of around Tk 41.88 billion, or over Tk 860 million per kilometre.
The government will need to spend an additional Tk 8.81 billion on the acquisition of 151 hectares of land and on the rehabilitation of the people living there.
The cost for the Jhenaidah-Jashore Highway shot up also due to the plan to set up optical fibre cable and “intelligent transport system”, said Shamima Nasrin, a member of the Planning Commission.
For the ongoing Sylhet-Tamabil Highway project, constructing four lanes will cost Tk 640 million per kilometre.
The Dhaka-Sylhet Highway will not be like the others because it will have two service lanes for slow vehicles in addition to the four main lanes, said Rashid.
The cost is also going up for the highway because the areas it goes through have more flow of water, thus more bridges and culverts will be needed, he added.
He also said the road transport and bridges ministry had initially submitted a Tk 180 billion budget while the commission cut it by nearly Tk 10 billion.
The government is developing the highway to four lanes to deliver on its commitment to the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation or SASEC programme.
Funded by the Asian Development Bank, the project is expected to end by 2026, according to the proposal, which states that the project is needed for overall development, including more dynamism in trade and industry, through the connectivity to the Asian Highway Network, BIMSTEC Corridor, SAARC Corridor and other regional road networks.
For a sustainable road network, the government has taken up a plan to develop the roads into four lanes besides constructing service lanes along the national highways, the proposal says.
As part of the plan, the authorities surveyed 1,752 kilometres of highways across the country with funds and technical help from the ADB. The survey covered the Dhaka-Sylhet-Tamabil Highway.
Besides connecting Sylhet with Dhaka and other parts of the country and increasing subregional trade, the highway has been considered a priority by the ADB for development in the subregion because Bangladesh is geographically at the centre of road connectivity between India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China, according to the proposal.