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The government is set to procure 10 tugboats with an estimated cost of over Tk 1.66 billion for transportation of dredgers and non-propel vessels to different parts of the country, in order to facilitate river dredging.
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) under the Ministry of Shipping will purchase the tugboats internally, said an official of the ministry.
The Dockyard and Engineering Works Ltd of the Bangladesh Navy located at Sonakanda in Narayanganj will build and supply the tugboats to BIWTA by May 2023.
The estimated weight of each bollard pull tugboat is 12 tonnes.
The shipping ministry official further said that State Minister for Shipping Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury will inaugurate construction work of the tugboats at the dockyard today (Saturday).
Soon after the country's independence, the then government led by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had procured seven dredgers for the river dredging purpose.
Until 2008, no successive governments purchased any single dredger, ignoring the necessity of river dredging.
Earlier, the present government crafted a master plan for dredging 10,000-kilometre river routes by procuring more dredgers, in a bid to ensure navigability and smooth transportation of passengers and goods services via waterways.
As part of the plan, the BIWTA has so far procured a total of 34 dredgers.
Besides, the process is also underway to purchase 35 more dredgers and 161 water vessels to increase BIWTA's dredging capacity.
The aim to procure 10 bollard pull tugboats is part of increasing the capacity.
Bollard pull is a measure of the pulling power of a vessel, comparable to the horsepower rating of conventional vehicle engines, according to marineinsight.com.
Bollard pull is calculated by connecting a pier bollard with a towing mechanism on the vessel and computing the force or tension developed in the connection using a load cell or similar component.
The bollard pull is similar in principle to the drawbar pull (coupling strength used between trailers and trucks) used on tractors, trucks, trailer-haulers, etc. to measure their ability to pull heavy loads or trailers, added the website.