Elevated expressway work starting this month: Quader

After missing two deadlines, the construction of the much-talked-about elevated expressway will start by the end of this October.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 12 Oct 2014, 03:29 PM
Updated : 12 Oct 2014, 03:29 PM

At a media call on Sunday, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said all uncertainties surrounding the 20 kilometres expressway had ended.

He had made similar announcements in February and September this year.

The expressway will connect the Shahjalal airport with Kutubkhali via Mohakhali, Tejgaon and Kamalapur.
It is one of the biggest infrastructure projects taken up by the incumbent government to ease traffic congestion in the capital.
It will be 46-km long including the connecting roads and will cost around Tk 122 billion.
The project is expected to be complete in 2016.
"Finally, ending all uncertainties, the elevated expressway from the airport to Dhaka-Chittagong Highway's Kutubkhali is going to start at the end of this month," minister Quader said.
Bangladesh signed the first agreement for the project on Jan 19, 2011 and a foundation stone was laid the same year.
Design change and inflation pushed the project's cost higher and the Roads and Highways Division inked a fresh agreement with the investor Ital-Thai Development Company in December last year.
Quader, who was then the communications minister, had said the project work would commence in February this year.
On June 12, he had again announced the construction work would start in September.