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CHATTOGRAM: Despite repeated time extension for implementation of the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway-Bayezid Bostami Bypass Road, the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) is still far away from completion of the project.
CDA now expects to complete the project by December 2019, three years later than the schedule.
Project Director (PD) Engineer Rajiv Das, however, said they will open the bypass road to traffic in May. But finishing some related works will take another six-seven months to December.
The bypass road construction was delayed due to obstruction of the Department of Environment in cutting hill on the project site, CDA officials said.
Another obstacle was construction of a loop road near the campus of Asian University for Women (AUW) from the bypass road. But, the AUW campus is quite away from the bypass road, which will not hamper its academic environment anyway, they also said.
For these reasons the project work was suspended for more than six months.
However, these issues were resolved four months ago at the instructions of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), they added.
The project expenditure will not increase despite delay in its implementation. No extra component has been added to the project, and there is no change in its expenditure, the PD confirmed.
The project was scheduled to be completed by December 2016. For different reasons, its completion time was extended to December 2018 and later to December 2019, he added.
CDA took up the six-kilometre Bayezid Bostami Bypass Road project in 2013 at a cost of Tk 320 million.
It was taken amid growing traffic congestion caused by inter-district buses, trucks and other modes of transports entering the port-city from northern areas of the district as well as hill districts of Rangamati and Khagrachhari.
The road will be a part of the CDA Outer Ring Road, connecting Shah Amanat Road, Oxygen-Kuaish Road and Bayezid Bostami Road with Dhaka-Chattogram Highway.
After completion of the road, thousands of transports from north-east areas, like - Rangamati, Kaptai, Rangunia, Raozan, Hathazari and Khagrachhari, will reach Dhaka Trunk Road without entering the city.
The under-construction bypass road will improve the city's primary road network. It will also ease huge pressure on Dhaka-Chattogram Highway, which is now suffering from huge load of vehicles.
The PD further said 60 per cent of the overall project work has been completed and it is certain that the main road work will be completed by May.
Apart from developing the six-km road, they are constructing eight new box-culverts and expanding seven box-culverts on the bypass road for facilitating the long-range vehicles.
"The road will be opened to traffic by May," he added.