The project to upgrade the 190.40 km two-lane highway from Elenga in Tangail to Rangpur into a four-lane highway is facing implementation hurdles due to delays in land acquisition and utility shifting, leading to another revision that will increase both the completion time and estimated cost, said officials of the planning commission.
The Road Transport and Highways Division (RTHD) has submitted a second revision proposal to the Planning Commission to extend the implementation tenure of the project titled "SASEC Road Link Project: Upgradation of Elenga-Hatikamrul-Rangpur highway to four lanes" by another two years up to December 2026.
Initially, the project was supposed to start in September 2016 and was scheduled for completion in August 2021, but this was previously extended to December 2024.
The proposed extension would bring the total implementation time to 10 years and four months, more than double the original period of five years.
The Planning Commission convened a meeting of the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) to analyse the proposal and the meeting chaired by Dr Mohammad Emdad Ullah Mian, member secretary of the Physical Infrastructure Division, asked for justification for the estimated costs of certain project components and decided to send the proposal back to the Road Transport and Highways Division (RTHD) for revision with a justified cost.
The working paper for the meeting revealed that the RTHD has proposed a revised estimated cost of Tk19,057 crore for the project, with Tk7,861 crore from the government's own funds and Tk11,196 crore from an Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan.
The delay in implementing the project would result in an additional cost of Tk7,157.59 crore, over 60% higher than the initial approved cost of Tk11,899 crore, including Tk2,544 crore from domestic sources and Tk9,355 crore from external sources.
The review found that the estimated costs from domestic resources have more than tripled, while the allocation from external sources has increased by less than 20%.
Officials stated that the RTHD proposed a cost of Tk4,806 crore, an increase of Tk151 crore compared to the existing project, for the pavement of the 190.40 km road. The meeting asked for justification for this proposal.
The meeting also sought justification for the request of Tk3,035 crore, which is about 14% higher than the existing allocation, for developing the foundation structure of 14.97 kilometres.
Analysing the minutes of the PEC meeting revealed that the planning commission raised objections to the proposal of five block allocations totalling over Tk950 crore and recommended that the RTHD provide detailed information for each item, including designs, work plans, cost estimates, and progress reports for each component.
The proposal seeks allocation of Tk216 crore for a road operation unit, Tk355.48 crore for a Road Research and Training Center, Tk48.42 crore for various components like furniture and street lighting, Tk185 crore for utility shifting, and Tk145.28 crore for price contingency.
Documents from the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) indicate that the project aims to improve connectivity across 22 districts in northern Bangladesh by widening over 190 km of road, accommodating a fivefold increase in vehicle flow by the next 20 years.
The feasibility study shows that the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) on the corridor is currently between 12,000 to 29,000 vehicles, projected to rise to 60,000 to 135,000 vehicles by 2040.
Under the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (Sasec) programme of the ADB, the project is designed to enhance regional trade by establishing sub-regional road connectivity with India, Nepal, and Bhutan through various corridors, aligning with Sasec road corridors 4 and 1, Asian Highway-2, BIMSTEC-2, and SAARC Highway Corridor-4.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved a project on 6, 2016, to be completed by August 2021 but the tenure was extended up to December 2024 in October 2020 due to sluggish implementation progress.
The proposal revealed the project spent Tk12,321.40 crore till last March, which is only 65% of the total estimated costs. Spending from domestic sources was marked at 92% of the allocation, but the progress from the project loan progressed at 47% only.
However, the physical progress of the project achieved 73% at the same time, the proposal revealed further.
The proposal outlined various factors contributing to project delays, including slow land acquisition processes, utility shifting delays, incorporation of new scopes of work, procurement delays, prolonged design approval by lenders, and disruptions in the global supply chain due to the COVID-19 lockdown.
The officials said that, all of the project packages were initially scheduled for completion by December of the current year, but the bidding process for four packages exceeded the expected timeline by a year.
Consequently, the RTHD proposed to extend the completion tenure of these packages to December 2025 and overall project tenure to December 2026 to accommodate a one-year defect liability period.
Dr Mohammad Emdad Ullah Mian, the member secretary of the Planning Commission who presided over the PEC meeting said the meeting asked for the justification of delay in the implementing the project and the rationale for extending the tenure by two more years.
He said the allocation has been kept as a block for several components even at the end of the implementation stage, so the meeting asked for a sector-wise detail proposal for each element without keeping block the allocation as per the instructions of the Planning Commission.
“The lack of transparency and accountability in public works has led to an increase in the duration and cost of infrastructure projects several times,” said Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology’s Accident Research Institute Director Professor Dr Shamsul Hoque.
“Any delay in the implementation of road project delays people receiving services from infrastructure and also increases sufferings to access the road under construction,” he added.
“The delay would create a loss of over Tk7861 crore from the public money. Ensuring punishment of liable with such costs would help to restore order in the public sector infrastructure projects,” he further said.
