Dhaka-Sylhet six-lane highway project starts in July

[UKBengali]

https://bangladeshpost.net/posts/dhaka-sylhet-six-lane-highway-project-to-start-july-26892


Slightly old news but this seems to be the only article I could find that gave almost definite confirmation on the final go-ahead from both ABD and also the BD government.

Of course the construction start date may now be delayed due to Covid-19 but at least it was finalised.

Also please bear in mind that this is so far the most expensive expansion of an existing two lane road into a highway so far in BD and far dwarfs the money spent on the longer Dhaka-Chittagong highway.
2.5 billion US dollars is a lot of money but gives Sylhet an excellent and fast link to the capital Dhaka.

Per kilometre this is similar to the cost of the international standard Dhaka to Mawa highway and by 2023(hopefully), Sylhet will have world class highway linking it to the capital Dhaka

@Abu Shaleh Rumi - See BD government recognises the important contribution of Sylhet to BD and that is why it only gets the best in terms of infrastructure.

The expansion of 214-kilometre Dhaka-Sylhet Highway into four lanes with additional two service lanes is likely to start in July this year. Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader have confirmed this. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide the fund for the 220 kilometers highway. The estimated cost of the project is Tk 20,000 crore.

The minster came up with this observation after a meeting with ADB’s Country Director Manmohan Parkash at his secretariat office in the capital on Monday. He said, “We have discussed about upgrading the existing two-lane Dhaka-Sylhet road to four lanes with two service lanes. This will be similar to an expressway where the project will have eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses, 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others.”

“The ADB country director came to me to discuss about a few projects including South Asian Sub-Regional Economic Co-operation (SASEC), the opening of Dhaka Alenga project which is under the SASEC Road Connecting Project. Its work is almost complete,” he added. “By March we will finalize the Detail Project Proposal (DPP). Following some formalities, the DPP will be sent to the planning commission. Upon getting the planning commission’s approval, we will go for physical construction by July this year,” he hoped.

The minister further said, “ADB has approved the project, they said to start purchase procedure after completing the necessary formalities. There is no fund crisis.” As per the project information, the highway will now have slow-moving lanes on both sides, and road curves will be straightened to ensure more speed.

 

[Stannis Baratheon]

91 crore for every km of the highway? These are a lot more than even the cost in European countries. This is how the government steals from the people by putting out big development projects with high cost.

Here's a good article on the cost of highway and corruption in Bangladesh for the project.

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/06/30/highway-costs-exorbitant

 

[Bilal9]

91 crore for every km of the highway? These are a lot more than even the cost in European countries. This is how the government steals from the people by putting out big development projects with high cost.

Here's a good article on the cost of highway and corruption in Bangladesh for the project.

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/06/30/highway-costs-exorbitant

The leadership of European countries are in cahoots with ours. There is not even one peep out of the EU/US/Asian leaders. They all control the purse strings and they control the media, they even control and enforce the social media nowadays, even a supposedly undeveloped country as ours. The level of control over our lives is complete.

For the local people, at least the saving grace is that they are getting SOMETHING out of it that they can use, for employment and logistics purposes.

 

[UKBengali]

91 crore for every km of the highway? These are a lot more than even the cost in European countries. This is how the government steals from the people by putting out big development projects with high cost.

Here's a good article on the cost of highway and corruption in Bangladesh for the project.

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/06/30/highway-costs-exorbitant

Yes there is some theft but nowhere near as much as people presume.


Think of the terrain and the extreme population density in BD that calls for many more bridges, footbridges etc etc along the highways than in other countries.

You need to compare like with like.

 

[Stannis Baratheon]

Yes there is some theft but nowhere near as much as people presume.


Think of the terrain and the extreme population density in BD that calls for many more bridges, footbridges etc etc along the highways than in other countries.

You need to compare like with like.

Land prices are not an excuse as they are cheaper in Bangladesh than in countries like UK. You can't purchase a decent flat for £70000 in London whereas with that price you can buy a very good one in anywhere in Dhaka. Most of the lands purchased are used by farmers for farming and are quite cheap. As for footbridges, I can rarely see them in highways or even on bridges. The corruption in these projects are massive in Bangladesh and if you try to investigate, you will either get jailed or get a visit from "plain clothed RAB".

 

[UKBengali]

Land prices are not an excuse as they are cheaper in Bangladesh than in countries like UK. You can't purchase a decent flat for £70000 in London whereas with that price you can buy a very good one in anywhere in Dhaka. Most of the lands purchased are used by farmers for farming and are quite cheap. As for footbridges, I can rarely see them in highways or even on bridges. The corruption in these projects are massive in Bangladesh and if you try to investigate, you will either get jailed or get a visit from "plain clothed RAB".

With all due respect I live in the UK and so have an idea what roads cost here.

To build something similar in UK, without the watery terrain of BD, would cost around 50 million US dollars per km.
Now this is just an average for the UK and will cost more in the SE of the UK that has similar population density to BD.

Even with the UK average figure of 50 million US dollar per km, it would cost 11-12 billion US dollars for the same length as the Dhaka-Sylhet highway, which is virtually a brand new road as it will be widened from 2 to 6 lanes. BD is spending 2.5 billion US dollars.

"eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses, 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others.”

Does the above look like nothing else needs to be built with this highway widening?

When you take in the fact that these roads are now 6 lanes(full motorways), the watery landscape and the massive population density it does not exactly look like a rip-off anymore.

Think of it another way, BD will spend maybe 20 billion US dollars in total to provide a comprehensive motorway network linking all major cites of a country of 165 million people. Now who would logically argue this was too expensive?

 

[Bilal9]

Land prices are not an excuse as they are cheaper in Bangladesh than in countries like UK. You can't purchase a decent flat for £70000 in London whereas with that price you can buy a very good one in anywhere in Dhaka. Most of the lands purchased are used by farmers for farming and are quite cheap. As for footbridges, I can rarely see them in highways or even on bridges. The corruption in these projects are massive in Bangladesh and if you try to investigate, you will either get jailed or get a visit from "plain clothed RAB".

Decent (meaning luxury like Baridhara, Gulshan) housing in Dhaka (even at current glut prices) is US$140 to US$200 per Sqft.

A 2000 sqft. luxury apartment/condo will cost US$300,000-400,000 at least. Which is GBP 240,000 to GBP 320,000. I don't call that cheap, even by global standards.

In say Mirpur areas this will be somewhat cheaper (half). I don't know if I'd be able to get anything for GBP £70000 though.

There is enough demand from local buyers to keep prices up.

 

[Stannis Baratheon]

With all due respect I live in the UK and so have an idea what roads cost here.

To build something similar in UK, without the watery terrain of BD, would cost around 50 million US dollars per km.
Now this is just an average for the UK and will cost more in the SE of the UK that has similar population density to BD.

Even with the UK average figure of 50 million US dollar per km, it would cost 11-12 billion US dollars for the same length as the Dhaka-Sylhet highway, which is virtually a brand new road as it will be widened from 2 to 6 lanes. BD is spending 2.5 billion US dollars.

"eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses, 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others.”

Does the above look like nothing else needs to be built with this highway widening?

When you take in the fact that these roads are now 6 lanes(full motorways), the watery landscape and the massive population density it does not exactly look like a rip-off anymore.

Think of it another way, BD will spend maybe 20 billion US dollars in total to provide a comprehensive motorway network linking all major cites of a country of 165 million people. Now who would logically argue this was too expensive?

It's an exaggeration with the $50 million per km. It's more like $23 million per km as per source below

"A mile of new motorway costs on average £30m, according to the Highways Agency." https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13924687

Also, you are taking in road and not the highway as per my link. Highway will cost a lot less due to land acquisitions cost a lot less.

As for "a comprehensive motorway network", we already have roads and it's an extension to the current one which is supposed to be lower than building a whole new one.

"eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses, 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others.”

Those are lies. There are seven flyovers in Bangladesh right now and eight would mean doubling that.

Decent (meaning luxury like Baridhara, Gulshan) housing in Dhaka (even at current glut prices) is US$140 to US$200 per Sqft.

A 2000 sqft. luxury apartment/condo will cost US$300,000-400,000 at least. Which is GBP 240,000 to GBP 320,000. I don't call that cheap, even by global standards.

In say Mirpur areas this will be somewhat cheaper (half). I don't know if I'd be able to get anything for GBP £70000 though.

There is enough demand from local buyers to keep prices up.

Those you mention aren't "decent". Go a few blocks back from the main roads, and they become cheap or even go to Uttara or Bashundhara. For £70000, you can get luxurious apartment in Mirpur.

 

[UKBengali]

It's an exaggeration with the $50 million per km. It's more like $23 million per km as per source below

"A mile of new motorway costs on average £30m, according to the Highways Agency." https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13924687

Also, you are taking in road and not the highway as per my link. Highway will cost a lot less due to land acquisitions cost a lot less.

As for "a comprehensive motorway network", we already have roads and it's an extension to the current one which is supposed to be lower than building a whole new one.

"eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses, 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others.”

Those are lies. There are seven flyovers in Bangladesh right now and eight would mean doubling that.

That link you gave is from 2011 and this is 2020.
Inflation would have added 30-40% extra by now.
Again that is the UK average and UK is not a watery country like BD is and so less need for bridges to traverse rivers and other waterways.

Why do you think that expanding dual lane roads to a fully comprehensive motorway network, linking all major cities for 20 billion US dollars in a watery county of 165 million people expensive?

Are you able to compare with a similar county and find it would be much cheaper? If yes please give details.

 

[mb444]

https://bangladeshpost.net/posts/dhaka-sylhet-six-lane-highway-project-to-start-july-26892


Slightly old news but this seems to be the only article I could find that gave almost definite confirmation on the final go-ahead from both ABD and also the BD government.

Of course the construction start date may now be delayed due to Covid-19 but at least it was finalised.

Also please bear in mind that this is so far the most expensive expansion of an existing two lane road into a highway so far in BD and far dwarfs the money spent on the longer Dhaka-Chittagong highway.
2.5 billion US dollars is a lot of money but gives Sylhet an excellent and fast link to the capital Dhaka.

Per kilometre this is similar to the cost of the international standard Dhaka to Mawa highway and by 2023(hopefully), Sylhet will have world class highway linking it to the capital Dhaka

@Abu Shaleh Rumi - See BD government recognises the important contribution of Sylhet to BD and that is why it only gets the best in terms of infrastructure.

The expansion of 214-kilometre Dhaka-Sylhet Highway into four lanes with additional two service lanes is likely to start in July this year. Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader have confirmed this. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide the fund for the 220 kilometers highway. The estimated cost of the project is Tk 20,000 crore.

The minster came up with this observation after a meeting with ADB’s Country Director Manmohan Parkash at his secretariat office in the capital on Monday. He said, “We have discussed about upgrading the existing two-lane Dhaka-Sylhet road to four lanes with two service lanes. This will be similar to an expressway where the project will have eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses, 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others.”

“The ADB country director came to me to discuss about a few projects including South Asian Sub-Regional Economic Co-operation (SASEC), the opening of Dhaka Alenga project which is under the SASEC Road Connecting Project. Its work is almost complete,” he added. “By March we will finalize the Detail Project Proposal (DPP). Following some formalities, the DPP will be sent to the planning commission. Upon getting the planning commission’s approval, we will go for physical construction by July this year,” he hoped.

The minister further said, “ADB has approved the project, they said to start purchase procedure after completing the necessary formalities. There is no fund crisis.” As per the project information, the highway will now have slow-moving lanes on both sides, and road curves will be straightened to ensure more speed.

Good news. Irrespective of the cost this is necessary.

These things cost money. Western averages are irrelevant here. Once infastructure is there the marginal cost of futher expansion is reduced.

BDs infastructure is not up to par. These huge costs will lay the foundation for economic growth and future cost will cone down.

You guys think in UK infastructure costs dont baloon. They do around 3 times the original estimate by the time it materialises on average.

The goal should be to get it done. The economic benefit would be many times the cost.

 

[fallstuff]

91 crore for every km of the highway? These are a lot more than even the cost in European countries. This is how the government steals from the people by putting out big development projects with high cost.

Here's a good article on the cost of highway and corruption in Bangladesh for the project.

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/06/30/highway-costs-exorbitant

A lot of fat cats and their minions need to get fed !

 

[bluesky]

91 crore for every km of the highway? These are a lot more than even the cost in European countries. This is how the government steals from the people by putting out big development projects with high cost.

Here's a good article on the cost of highway and corruption in Bangladesh for the project.

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2016/06/30/highway-costs-exorbitant

- Europe is not full of lowland marsh as BD is. Europe has many mountains with hard soils and the countries there do not need to carry trillions of cft of soil from other places or dig canals adjacent to a road. Contrary to what we like to believe, earthwork itself is very expensive although finally it goes below the road and people cannot see it. People see only the concrete or asphalt work and not earthwork. So, they ask why so expensive?

- More to the above, the news says, "-- the project will have eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses (viaducts), 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others". Except 10 underpasses, all the structures have to be built on piled foundations, I am not sure about foot bridges, though. Piling work is very expensive.

- European countries generally award contracts to their own general contractors, and the planning and design analysis are done by their own people. BD cannot do these. So, foreign contractors are involved that costs a lot of additional money.

These are many of the reasons why BD high quality roads need more money to build. However, I am not telling that there is no Churidari in Golden Bangladesh.

 

[Homo Sapiens]

- Europe is not full of lowland marsh as BD is. Europe has many mountains with hard soils and the countries there do not need to carry trillions of cft of soil from other places or dig canals adjacent to a road. Contrary to what we like to believe, earthwork itself is very expensive although finally it goes below the road and people cannot see it. People see only the concrete or asphalt work and not earthwork. So, they ask why so expensive?

- More to the above, the news says, "-- the project will have eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses (viaducts), 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others". Except 10 underpasses, all the structures have to be built on piled foundations, I am not sure about foot bridges, though. Piling work is very expensive.

- European countries generally award contracts to their own general contractors, and the planning and design analysis are done by their own people. BD cannot do these. So, foreign contractors are involved that costs a lot of additional money.

These are many of the reasons why BD high quality roads need more money to build. However, I am not telling that there is no Churidari in Golden Bangladesh.

Besides earthwork, foreign contracts, foreign loan and Churidari, we have a number of other factors as well responsible for higher costs in road construction in Bangladesh.

1. Govt. has very little land on it's hand unlike other countries. In Bangladesh, around 95 percent of all land is privately owned and each times govt. appropriate large amount of land, they need to give vast some of money as a compensation, specially highway sides land which is usually the prime land in our country and value much more then other lands. Another peculiar thing about Bangladesh is, in other countries, market place, school, colleges, mosque are far away from major highways, but in Bangladesh these things are right next to highways and require massive demolition works and thus compensation skyrocket. No wonder, for any road/highway project in Bangladesh, the biggest cost component is often the land acquisition.

2. As a mostly delta country, Bangladesh has very little stone and other road construction materials of its own. We have to secure most of the items from abroad and it raises the cost.

3. Our highways needs elevation as Bangladesh is a flood prone country.

4. High Govt. tax over the imported construction materials.

5. Lastly, quality highway/expressway building in other countries also not as cheap compared to Bangladesh as we led to believe. For example, In India, under construction Delhi-Mumbai 8 lane expressway(1250 km) will cost 1.1 trillion Rupees. Per km will cost 88 crore Rupees or 105 crore Taka. On the other hand, 6 lane Dhaka-Sylhet highway will cost 98 core Taka per km. So if you compare Delhi-Mumbai expressway with this one, the cost of Bangladeshi projects does not look exorbitantly high.

 

[bluesky]

1. Govt. has very little land on it's hand unlike other countries. In Bangladesh, around 95 percent of all land is privately owned and each times govt. appropriate large amount of land, they need to give vast some of money as a compensation, specially highway sides land which is usually the prime land in our country and value much more then other lands. Another peculiar thing about Bangladesh is, in other countries, market place, school, colleges, mosque are far away from major highways, but in Bangladesh these things are right next to highways and require massive demolition works and thus compensation skyrocket. No wonder, for any road/highway project in Bangladesh, the biggest cost component is often the land acquisition.

Bold part: it is the generalization of high road building expenses in BD. I have not visited Sylhet nor I have used the Dhaka-Sylhet two lane road. However, in all other road systems in BD, canals were excavated at the two road sides and the soil was used to elevate the roads when these were built during the 1960s.

If Dhaka-Sylhet has similar construction, the existing canals, in most of the length, will have to be filled in by soils carried in from other places to widen the road. I do not know if this will lower or raise the cost of construction. I think the land purchasing cost will be lower because of availability of land when the road was first built, but the soil carrying cost will be higher.

 

[SylhetiBDeshiAmerican]

With all due respect I live in the UK and so have an idea what roads cost here.

To build something similar in UK, without the watery terrain of BD, would cost around 50 million US dollars per km.
Now this is just an average for the UK and will cost more in the SE of the UK that has similar population density to BD.

Even with the UK average figure of 50 million US dollar per km, it would cost 11-12 billion US dollars for the same length as the Dhaka-Sylhet highway, which is virtually a brand new road as it will be widened from 2 to 6 lanes. BD is spending 2.5 billion US dollars.

"eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses, 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others.”

Does the above look like nothing else needs to be built with this highway widening?

When you take in the fact that these roads are now 6 lanes(full motorways), the watery landscape and the massive population density it does not exactly look like a rip-off anymore.

Think of it another way, BD will spend maybe 20 billion US dollars in total to provide a comprehensive motorway network linking all major cites of a country of 165 million people. Now who would logically argue this was too expensive?

I concur, pure facts here. This is such a great news this is greatly needed, roads are so dangerous and and accidents are rampant, this highway Expansion is an urgent need will improve the lives of its local citizens’ economic opportunities along the this expanded highway as commerce and trade will flourish more efficiently and soundly. That is awesome, MashaAllah

- Europe is not full of lowland marsh as BD is. Europe has many mountains with hard soils and the countries there do not need to carry trillions of cft of soil from other places or dig canals adjacent to a road. Contrary to what we like to believe, earthwork itself is very expensive although finally it goes below the road and people cannot see it. People see only the concrete or asphalt work and not earthwork. So, they ask why so expensive?

- More to the above, the news says, "-- the project will have eight flyovers, 22 overpasses, five railway overpasses (viaducts), 69 bridges, 10 underpasses, 29 footbridges, and others". Except 10 underpasses, all the structures have to be built on piled foundations, I am not sure about foot bridges, though. Piling work is very expensive.

- European countries generally award contracts to their own general contractors, and the planning and design analysis are done by their own people. BD cannot do these. So, foreign contractors are involved that costs a lot of additional money.

These are many of the reasons why BD high quality roads need more money to build. However, I am not telling that there is no Churidari in Golden Bangladesh.

I think Netherland is a deltaic country like Bangladesh, but you’re correct otherwise.

The leadership of European countries are in cahoots with ours. There is not even one peep out of the EU/US/Asian leaders. They all control the purse strings and they control the media, they even control and enforce the social media nowadays, even a supposedly undeveloped country as ours. The level of control over our lives is complete.

For the local people, at least the saving grace is that they are getting SOMETHING out of it that they can use, for employment and logistics purposes.

Yes it is very ironic to see developing countries which are technologically less advance (infrastructure wise) but yet have greater and mass control over its masses which infringes upon personal privacy, liberty.