Highway, flyover construction costs rise sharply [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Highway, flyover construction costs rise sharply

Local January 22, 2017

The construction costs of highways and flyovers have skyrocketed in Bangladesh.
A comparative picture shows that the costs of construction of highway and flyovers exceeds the costs in leading European and Asian countries.
The per km cost for the construction of proposed four-lane 53-km Dhaka-Mawa Highway has been set at Tk 117.96 crore.
The per km construction cost of the proposed 190.40-km Elanga-Rangpur Highway has been set at Tk 62.40 crore while the per km construction cost of the proposed 226-km Dhaka-Sylhet Highway has been set at Tk 56 crore.
The three proposed highways provide the picture of cost escalation compared to the almost completed four-lane192-km Dhaka-Chittagong Highway and the nearly completed four-lane 87.18-km Joydebpur-Mymensingh Highway as well as the under construction
four-lane70-km Joydevpur-Elengana Highway.
The per km construction cost of Dhaka-Chittagong Highway was Tk 19.88 crore and that of Joydevpur-Mymensingh Highway was ( Tk 20.82 crore while for the Joydevpur-Elenga Highway it was Tk43.8 crore).
Europe spent $3,50,000 equivalent to Tk 28 crore, on construction of one Km four-lane new highway, according to a 2014 report of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
Experts said there was no valid ground for such sharp highway cost escalation considering that there had been no comparable rises in labour costs or the prices of construction materials in Bangladesh.
Former caretaker government adviser Mirza Azizul Islam told New Age that the authorities could provide no convincing reason for such big cost escalation.
The inflated cost estimates were approved mostly in the last year, he said.
He said it raised doubts whether these projects’ cost effectiveness was at all examined by the planning commission or the road transport ministry.
Only last year, neigbouring India awarded contracts for the construction of 15,000 km highways at the rate of 15 crore Rupees per Km, according to a report of the Times of India.
Officials said that the capital’s fly-over construction cost was much higher compared to their costs in the South and the South East Asian countries.
Engineer an former caretaker government adviser Jamilur Reza Chowdhury said that the high costing of flyovers and the highways was set by the authorities by skirting bidding and scrutiny.
He also blamed the cost escalations to implementation delays.
Officials said delay in constructing the four-lane 11-km Mayor Hanif Flyover in the capital had skyrocketed its cost to Tk 2,053 crore in 2013 from the cost of Tk 670 crore projected eight years back in 2005.
In other words Tk 186 crore was the per km construction cost of the Mayor Hanif Flyover.
In India it costs less than Tk 100 crore to build one km of Flyover while Pakistan spends around Tk 70 crore for it, said officials.
Malaysia and China also spend less than Tk 100 crore on construction of each km of four-lane flyover, they said.
Delays escalated the construction cost of the four-lane eight -km Moghbazar-Mouchak Flyover to Tk 1,219 crore from the cost of Tk 773 crore projected in January 2011.
The flyover is still under construction, though scheduled to be completed in December 2014 for which experts expressed the apprehension that the cost would escalate further.
Road Transport and Highways Division secretary MAN Siddique said that highway construction cost was high in Bangladesh as they involve construction of bridges, flyovers, underpasses, intersections and U-loops.
High land acquisition costs also raise the highway construction cost in Bangladesh, he said.