Saturday, June 23, 2012Front Page
Rail projects rely on private partnership
Rail projects rely on private partnership
Ministry plans to lure in $3b investment by offering its land for medical colleges, hotels, shopping malls
M Abul Kalam Azad
As most of the railway projects remained stalled due to fund crisis, the government has decided to attract private investment under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for its three major schemes worth $3 billion.
The projects are construction of a railway bridge parallel to the existing Bangabandhu Multipurpose Bridge and another bridge at Phulchhari-Bahadurabad point and laying of tracks between Dohazari and Cox's Bazar.
Under PPP, the railway ministry has planned to build six medical colleges on railway land at Kamalapur in Dhaka and in Rajshahi, Chittagong, Nilphamari, Sylhet and Pabna districts.
Two five-star hotels and two shopping malls will also be set up in Dhaka and Chittagong, while shopping mall-cum guest houses will be built in Chittagong, Khulna, Sylhet, Rangpur, Lalmonirhat, Dinajpur, Comilla, and Brahmanbaria.
Bangladesh Railway (BR) will provide the land for the projects, while the private investors will bear the other costs, Abu Taher, director general of BR told The Daily Star.
A nursing institute will be constructed near the medical college on 4.5 acres of land adjacent to the existing railway hospital in Kamalapur.
The BR has already finalised a project proposal to build the medical college and nursing institute. It will soon send the proposal to the PPP office, which operates under the Prime Minister's Office.
Unabated grabbing of its land and a severe financial crisis have led the BR to go for building the colleges, hotels and malls, mentioned Abu Taher.
Railway sources said at least 5,000 acres of its total land have been grabbed by illegal occupants over the past decades.
Besides, successive governments have leased out railway land to political beneficiaries.
The PPP office has already selected the three major projects.
The construction work of Tk 1,852 crore Dohzari-Cox's Bazar rail track could not be started due to insufficient fund, although Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had inaugurated the work last year.
Railway officials said they were yet to start acquiring land for the project.
This rail route is very important for inter-district as well as regional connectivity, as it will reach Gundam (Myanmar) through Teknaf to connect Trans-Asian Railway -- a railway network across Europe and Asia.
According to primary estimations, construction of the 11-km Phulchhari-Bahadurabad rail bridge will cost $2 billion, including land acquisition and river training.
Building the bridge was an election pledge of the ruling Awami League, but the government could not even start the feasibility study due to shortage of fund.
Construction of the double-line rail bridge parallel to the Bangabandhu Multipurpose Bridge will cost around $800 million.
A new bridge on the Jamuna has become imperative as the capacity of the existing bridge has already been tapped.
The BR is implementing 42 projects, most of which have made very little progress due to lack of fund.
However, some of the schemes under the Indian $1 billion credit have progressed reasonably.
The BR had inked several deals with Indian companies to purchase locomotives and coaches.
The decision to introduce the PPP model in railway projects came at a meeting on railway's development, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Ministers and secretaries of finance, agriculture and railway ministries, and the railway DG attended the meeting at Gono Bhaban on January 17.
(( pyare pyare log wali line jinxed ne mujhe kaha tha add karne k liye hahah)
