For several months, the parties’ financial and legal issues have caused the development of the Dhaka elevated highway to come to a halt.
On Tuesday, there were no building activity visible in the section of the expressway that runs along the railtrack from Moghbazar to Malibagh.
Speaking with some locals, it was discovered that the expressway’s under-construction constructions had not been touched in the previous four months. The construction site used to employ hundreds of people, but on this particular day, not a single person was seen.
The Moghbazar stockyard on the freeway had just one security guard on duty on Tuesday, as opposed to the ten or twelve employees that were there on April 2, three months prior.
On that particular day, only few people could be observed working on the Hatirjheel section of the expressway. Due to disagreements over shares among the foreign corporations and the ensuing difficulties obtaining bank loans, the construction project has come to a standstill.
First Dhaka Elevated Expressway (FDEE) Company Limited, the company in charge of building and running the facility, acknowledged that the work had to be delayed because of disagreements over shares and financial difficulties.
In response to an email inquiry, the company stated that they were making great progress in getting funding and planned to be able to resume construction work by August.
In an April email, it did, however, assure Prothom Alo that loans would be managed quickly and the project would be finished by June 30.
From Kawla, close to the Dhaka airport, to Kutubkhali on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway, via Kuril, Banani, Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Moghbazar, Kamalapur, Sayedabad, and Jatrabari, the elevated expressway stretches 19.73 kilometers.
Construction has halted on the remaining section, with the section from Kawla to the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC) having already been completed.
At Kawla, Moghbazar, and Kamalapur, the FDEE operates a number of workstations and stockyards to manage the construction projects. The stockyards at Kawla have been closed since February, and the ones in the other locations since March.
Rumors that the works have been delayed because of a court injunction were purportedly propagated by a vested quarter. The FDEE, however, refuted it, stating that the court had only stopped the transfer of shares and had not mandated a stop to work.
The bridge authority stated that the contractors working under the FDEE have been directed to resolve the conflicts and promptly go back to work on the construction project.
This is a public-private partnership (PPP) initiative in which the government of Bangladesh is working with two Chinese and one Thai company. Sinohydro Corporation Limited, China Shandong International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group, and Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited are the three foreign businesses.
