Dhaka Elevated Expressway
Work begins in Aug
Construction work of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway is going to start in August to ease the perennial traffic gridlock in the city, Communications Minister Obaidul Quader said yesterday.
According to a revised plan, the length of the expressway will be 40 kilometres. In the first phase, an eight-kilometre route from Shahjalal International Airport to Tejgaon will be constructed, he stated.
The minister was talking to journalists at his secretariat office after holding a meeting on traffic management in the capital ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr.
An eight-kilometre route from Tejgaon to Kamalapur and a seven-kilometre from Kamalapur to Kutubkhali of Shanirakhra will be built in the second and third phases respectively.
Landing and climbing ramps of the road will take up the remaining 17 km.
As per a concession agreement, the Thailand-based contractor Ital-Thai will build the Tk 8,703 crore elevated road, of which the government will bear Tk 2,258 crore on the basis of Public Private Partnership.
The government had inked the deal with the firm in January 2011, when the then communications said construction would be complete by the middle of 2014.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on April 30 that year had inaugurated the construction of the expressway, which was dubbed a “groundbreaking ceremony”.
TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
Citing information provided by the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, the minister said there were 1.94 lakh unfit motor vehicles in the capital and the list had been given to the metropolitan traffic police department.
Abu Naser, senior information officer of the ministry, said the meeting had decided to conduct a survey on unregistered motorcycles in the capital over the next one month and fresh registration of bikes would remain stalled from today.
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