Capital dredging of Karnaphuli in the offing
The Karnaphuli river. The photo was taken from Bangla Bazar area on Monday. Photo:Zobaer Hossain Sikder
The capital dredging of the river Karnaphuli and construction of its 2.5km marine driveway with bank protection wall along the city side are likely to begin soon, sources said. Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has appointed Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) as a consultant on January 7 with approval of the shipping ministry for implementing a project worth Tk 376 crore, said the sources at CPA. The Bureau of Research and Testing Authority (BRTA) of Buet submitted a Technical and Financial Proposal (TFP) to CPA on Tuesday in this regard. CPA Chairman Commodore Reaz Uddin Ahmed said, "Since it is an important and priority project for the port as well as for the country and the TFP is ready we would sign an agreement with Buet soon." He told The Daily Star on Tuesday that they have already asked Buet to prepare a pre-qualification (PQ) document as early as possible for floating the pre-qualifying tender by this month. "We want to complete the bidding and short-listing of the pre-qualified bidders by the middle of March so that the Buet team can go ahead with preparation of tender documentation, project designing and other works for floating the main tender to appoint contractor for the dredging and construction works," Reaz said. He said they expect to float tender by the end of June or middle of July. Some 3.5 Million Cubic Meters (mcm) earth would be dredged from some 3km bed of the Karnaphuli stretching from Sadarghat lighterage jetty towards upstream some 500 meters off Shah Amanat Bridge under the project, sources said. At the same time a 2.5 marine driveway with bank protection wall would be constructed along right bank of the river stretching from Sadarghat to upstream, said Project Director Habibur Rahman. As per the project profile (PP) approved by the shipping ministry on October 13 in 2009, implementation of the project was scheduled to start on July 1 the same year to be completed by June 1 in 2012, Habibur said. CPA took a Tk 74 crore project under a Japanese Debt Cancellation Programme for capital dredging of the river and bank protection works in 2005. The Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved a project concept paper in this regard on February 27 while the Department for Project Evaluation Committee (DPEC) approved the project profile on May 11 the same year. But, a Revised Development Project Proforma (RDPP) prepared in June 2006 inflated the cost by a staggering 345 percent to Tk 255.30 crore, prompting the ministry to cancel the previous project. A fresh DPP of Tk 411.72 crore was prepared in 2008 that was recast and finalised last year to implement the project at Tk 376 crore, sources said. Habibur said, "In the recasting previously proposed sheet-piling was replaced by RCC pillar, which was less costly, users-friendly and can be made locally, for the bank protection wall. It reduced the project cost by Tk 34 crore. "As per the new PP the quantity of earth to be dredged stood at around 3.5 million cubic meters (mcm) from 2.9 mcm of the DPP. The recasting also re-fixed the dredging rate at Tk 320 per cubic meter from previous rate of Tk 360 per cubic meter," said Habibur, adding that the other components of the project would remain unchanged.
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