The deadline of the country’s first-ever bus rapid transit line project, undertaken nearly 12 years ago to connect Gazipur and Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport through a dedicated bus service over a 20.5-kilometre corridor, is set to get yet another extension by two more years, leading its cost to see a further increase.

Jointly funded by the Asian Development Bank, the Agence Française de Développement and the Bangladesh government, the project will see its sixth extension in deadline, while its cost would see a rise for the third time.

The road transport and bridges ministry has started working with the Dhaka Bus Rapid Transit Company Limited, the implementing agency of the ‘Bus Rapid Transit Line-3 Project’, also known as the ‘BRT Project’, to send a proposal to the Planning Commission to set its new deadline till December 2026.

The deadline extension means further lingering of the wait for the start of the project’s full service by thousands of people commuting on the hectic Dhaka-Mymensingh national highway.

Soon after the inauguration of its construction, the BRT Project became an example of irregularities and mismanagement with development projects, causing massive traffic congestions and fatal accidents along the project area.

Having begun in December 2012, the project, through a 20.5km-long dedicated bus corridor with its 16km stretch running ‘at grade’ (ground level) and 4.5km stretch running at elevated levels, aims at reducing traffic congestion in the adjacent road network. 

Initially, the project was scheduled for completion by December 2016 at a cost of around Tk 2,000 crore which later doubled to Tk 4,268.32 crore.

In the first extension, the deadline was stretched to December 2018 followed by four more extensions—till June 2020, till June 2022, till December 2022 and lastly till December 2024.

Till now, most of the work of the infrastructure is complete and its main corridor, different flyovers and connecting roads have been open to the public use.

An initial plan to operate electric buses on the corridor was later cancelled and accordingly a tender floated to buy these vehicles was discard earlier, following a second tender called in April time to buy 137 buses diesel-run air-conditioned buses.

Dhaka Bus Rapid Transit Company Limited company managing director Md Moniruzzaman told New Age on Tuesday that till now the project progress was around 96 per cent.

‘We already have evaluated the tender for buying buses and sent the report to the Agence Française de Développement for their no objection certificate,’ he said, adding that this was the reason for which the project’s work was unlikely to finish by this year.

The managing director said that they had already started to work with the road transport and bridges ministry to send a proposal to the Planning Commission for extending the project deadline till December 2026.

Replying to a question, Md Moniruzzaman said that with extension in deadline the project cost was likely to increase also over office rent, salaries of the project officials, transport cost and increase in the cost of project materials.

He also mentioned that during the recent mass uprising led by the students in July and early August this year, vandalism carried out in the project area, especially damages done to 40 escalators in the stations would lead to the cost rise of an estimated Tk 90 crore.

The project targets to operate buses tagged ‘Dhaka Line’ on the corridor carrying around four lakh passengers daily, making available e-ticketing, automatic ticket counters and intelligent transport system for passengers. 

Around 50 minutes will be required by bus to cross the corridor through 25 stations, according to the project documents.

Initially, the bus service is scheduled to operate under the supervision of the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation.

Roads and Highways Department, Bangladesh Bridge Authority and the Local Government Engineering Department are also joint implementers of the project.

On August 15, 2022, five people were killed on the spot when a girder in the project site crashed on a car near Jashim Uddin Avenue in Uttara.

The Rapid Action Battalion found that the crane, from which the girder fell on the car, was fitness-expired and being operated by the crane operator’s assistant at the time of the incident.