Shawdesh DEsk:

The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project for constructing 20km dedicated bus route from Gazipur to airport to ease nagging traffic congestion in the capital is now back on track after a long delay.

The scheme has caused huge suffering to the city dwellers, but project officials say it got acceleration now after special initiative has been taken to implement it within the stipulated timeframe.

“The project work is now going fast after the start of the dry season and it is expected end within its current deadline of June 2022,” said project director ASM Elias Shah.

Officials at road transport and highways division special initiatives have been taken to ramp up project execution so that the city dwellers can benefit from the project as soon as possible.

The project is being monitored with special priority and an additional secretary has been assigned to look after the project activity on regular basis, they added.

Apart from constructing the bus route, 50 articulated buses will be procured under the project through international tendering to give full benefits of the project to the people, the project director informed.

Once the project is fully complete, buses will be available after every one and a half minutes and it will be possible to reach Shahjalal International Airport in only 40 minutes, he added.

The project has been designed to Road transport and highways division, local government engineering department (LGED) and Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) are jointly implementing the important project that started in December 2012.

It is being implemented at an estimated cost of Tk 42.68 billion. ADB, French agency AFD and Global Environment Facility (GEF) and GoB are providing the money.

Out of the 20.20km bus route, 4.5km will be elevated route while the rest will remain on the ground. The work so far advanced nearly 51 percent, according to project officials.

Besides, a 10-lane bridge on the River Turag in Tongi and six flyovers at different places with 2812.50 metres total length are being built.

25 stations, a bus depot at Gazipur 113 access road with 56km total length and 24km high capacity drain will be also be constructed under the scheme.

The work of the bridge so far advanced 60.70 percent, while overall progress of construction of six flyovers 73.30 percent. The bus depot has been complete and 97.10 percent work of the drainage system has been over.

Some 1.5 million people live in Tongi area which is also a dense industrial area. Some 300 RMG factories are located in adjacent areas of BRT corridor, which employ nearly one million RMG workers.

As a result, the number of vehicles is on the rise on the route, also raising the number of road accidents at the same time.

More than 2,500 buses and minibuses are operated by the private operators on the route, most of which are rickety and unfit for plying on the roads, according to official data.

After analyzing the accidents on the route, the government finds that 50 percent road accident victims are pedestrians.

The government picked up the project in December 2012 after a growing demand for a safe, comfortable, environment-friendly, cost-effective and a modern city transport system.

Project people think that the project will be able to give an overall solution to the lack of modern and faster transport system in the capital as well as a coordinated transport system.