Govt to build ring road around Dhaka to improve traffic system
An outer ring road is going to be built around Dhaka to ease the capital's nagging traffic congestion.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs on Wednesday approved a project to initially build a 48-km road under the public private partnership (PPP) by a Japanese partner.
After the meeting, finance minister Mustafa Kamal, also head of the cabinet body, said the total length of the outer ring road will be 138 km.
"But initially, we've given approval to build a 48-km one at an estimated cost of Tk 10,200 crore. We'll prefer a Japanese partner for the project to implement it under the PPP concept," he told reporters.
The minister said the project will be implemented on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) system.
He said a feasibility study will be conducted first and then the Road Transport and Highways Division will move for picking a Japanese partner.
Work on the proposed ring road will start in 2020 and conclude by 2023, Mustafa Kamal added.
Earlier, the same project was placed before the cabinet body meeting on 27 March last.
But due to some lapses in the design and lack of information about its mode of funding, it failed to receive the nod of the cabinet body.
After making some amendments to the proposal with required information, the proposal was again placed before the committee and finally it received the approval.
The cabinet body also approved another proposal placed by the home ministry to procure 2 million more machine readable passports (MRPs) on an emergency basis directly from the existing supplier through the direct procurement method (DPM).
Under this process, the government agency can buy anything from any supplier without following the open tender process.
Officials said the failure to introduce e-passports has prompted the home ministry to go for such a costly procurement of MRPs without tender.
As per the approval, the 2 million passport booklets and the same amount of their lamination foils will be procured from the existing UK-based supply firm -- De La Rue Int. Ltd -- to prepare the 2 million MRPs at a cost of Tk 410 million.