Rickety Kalurghat bridge, poor state of Ctg to Dohazari line to trouble travellers
The Dhaka-Cox's Bazar rail line via Chattogram is likely to open this September, but the rail connectivity between the capital and the tourist district may not be smooth before 2028.
Officials said the dilapidated Kalurghat bridge and the poor state of a 52km section from Chattogram city to Dohazari are the problems.
Bangladesh Railway is to take up two projects -- one for building a new bridge at Kalurghat, and the other for improving the Chattogram-Dohazari section. But projects would not be completed before 2028, BR sources said.
Currently, the bridge, with a speed limit of just 10kmph, is off-limits for heavy locomotives and trains.
Until the new bridge is built there, BR is planning to spend Tk 60 crore to repair the current one and make it sturdy enough for heavy locomotives. However, the repairs will not allow trains' speed limit on the bridge to be raised much.
The Chattogram-Dohazari section is a meter-gauge line with a speed limit of 48kmph, a stark contrast to the 100km rail line from Dohazari to Cox's Bazar's Ramu with a 100kmph speed limit.
Speaking to The Daily Star yesterday, transport expert Prof Hadiuzzaman said, "There is a fault or weakness in the planning. And that's why the Dhaka-Cox's Bazar rail operation will not be smooth until the new bridge is built and the section [Chattogram-Dohazari] is improved."
Speed limits -- on the bridge and the section mentioned -- will hamper the effectiveness of operations on the line, said Hadiuzzaman, a professor of the civil engineering department at Buet
Referring to the rail speed limit imposed on the Bangabandhu Bridge, he said, "We didn't learn any lesson from that experience."
The 20kmph speed limit on Bangabandhu Bridge has been causing delays in rail operations from Dhaka to northern and south-western parts of the country.
CHATTOGRAM-COX'S BAZAR RAIL LINE
The government took up the 128km metre-gauge rail line project in 2010, with a target to complete by June 2013. It was supposed to cost Tk 1,852.35 crore.
In 2014, the government decided to install dual-gauge lines and keep space for double lines, which raised the cost to a staggering Tk 18,034.47 crore.
The authorities then made more changes and shelved the plan to build the lines up to Ramu's Gundum, near the Myanmar border.
But the physical work of the 100km Dohazari-Ramu section started in March 2018, with a current deadline set for June 2024, with a one-year defect liability period.
Visiting the project site yesterday, Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan said the Dhaka-Cox's Bazar rail operation will begin within this September.
"All-out efforts are on to complete the work [of Chattogram-Cox's Bazar line] within August to inaugurate it [Dhaka-Cox's Bazar line] in September," he told reporters while inspecting the under-construction iconic station in Cox's Bazar.
At least 84 percent of the civil works have been completed, he added.
THE IMPEDIMENTS
Built in 1931 as a rail bridge and then converted into a rail/road bridge in 1962, the Kalurghat bridge over the Karnaphuli has become rather unsafe and the authorities have to repair it occasionally to keep it usable.
Heavy locomotives, which were added to the railway fleet over the last few years, cannot use the bridge.
In 2014, the government decided to build a new bridge and decommission the British-era bridge.
In 2018, a Detailed Project Proposal (DPP) was prepared for a single rail line and double-lane road bridge that would cost Tk 1,163.27 crore.
Now, the bridge would have double-line dual-gauge rail lines and a double-lane road on the same deck. It is expected to be built at a cost of around Tk 14,000 crore with South Korean financing.
BR is expected to submit the new DPP within this month and the project is likely to take up to 2028 to be completed.
Railways Minister Sujan said a group of experts were tasked with repairing the bridge and once that is done, the railway operations will face no hindrance.
A BR official, requesting anonymity, said the repaired bridge will be able to support heavy locomotives, but the speed limit will remain the same. "It can be upgraded to maybe 20kmph but no more than that."
BR has already floated tender to repair the bridge before September 15, sources said.
Meanwhile, only two passenger trains and an oil tanker train, both pulled by small locomotives, run on the Chattogram-Dohazari metre-gauge section, BR sources said.
To increase the speed on the section to 80kmph from 48kmph, BR has submitted a project proposal to the Planning Commission. The proposal asked to turn the section into dual-gauge one at a cost of Tk 7,073.54 crore by June 2027 with funding from Asian Development Bank.
Contacted, BR's Director General Quamrul Ahsan, however, claimed that railway operations between Dhaka and Cox's Bazar will be smooth from the beginning of its opening.
He said they would carry out some maintenance work on the Chattogram-Dohazari section to increase train speed to 60kmph, claiming that after repairs, the speed limit on Kalurghat Bridge would also be increased. He, however, could not say by how much.
About the delay in starting the two projects, he told The Daily Star last night, "It is not possible for us to do all the work at the same time. We have to implement the projects in phases."
