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Realtors are left in the lurch as the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha's (RAJUK) digital construction-permitting system has remained offline for nearly three months following massive hacking, halting design approval and land-use clearance.
Industry-insiders have said the prolonged breakdown of the Electronic Construction Permitting System (eCPS) has stalled hundreds of new projects, disrupted employment and severely hit backward-linkage industries tied to building construction.
The crisis began on May 19, when hackers hacked into the eCPS server and secured illegal approval for a 15-storey building in wetlands and height-restricted zone. RAJUK suspended the system the following day. Three suspects were later arrested over the incident of cyberattack.
The shutdown has also affected more than 300 related industries, including cement, steel, tiles, and paints, disrupting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers, sources said.
Between May 2019 and early 2023, RAJUK had approved an average of 478 designs a month. Based on this trend, more than 1,400 approvals have been lost during the past three months.
Developers estimate that construction of as many buildings has been delayed, leaving nearly 43,000 workers-from engineers to day labourers-without jobs.
Officials acknowledge that the server is still non-functional. "We have sought technical solutions from the Bangladesh Computer Council. If necessary, we may revert to manual approvals," a senior RAJUK official told The Financial Express.
Property developers say their business operations are at a standstill as they cannot apply for clearance or occupancy certificate.
"Considering the industry's situation, REHAB has written to the RAJUK chairman," said Liakat Ali Bhuiyan, senior vice-president of the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh.
He said the server was briefly reopened three weeks ago following their meeting with the RAJUK chairman.
However, companies' representatives claim that file processing has not resumed yet and they also mention that RAJUK has no manpower to operate the system.
This is not the first such incident. In December 2023, nearly 30,000 files reportedly went missing from the eCPS server in another hacking attack, which later reached the High Court. Many clients are still unsure whether their files were recovered.
Representatives of 25 leading developer companies said they failed to meet the RAJUK chairman last Sunday despite repeated request. They added that they would wait until August 20, as assured earlier, before launching demonstrations in front of RAJUK's office if the issue remains unresolved.
Repeated attempts by the FE writer to contact RAJUK chairman Engineer Md Reazul Islam over the phone and WhatsApp went unanswered.
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