Six projects, including the construction of a bridge across the Padma and the Rampal thermal power plant, have been fast-tracked by the new government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The other projects are the Rooppur nuclear power plant, metro rail, deep-sea port at Sonadia in Cox’s Bazar and constructing a liquefied natural gas terminal.
Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said Hasina fixed this priority at Wednesday’s Project Monitoring Committee meeting.
Speaking to bdnews24.com, Muhith said: “We discussed the progress of various important projects in the first meeting of the new government’s Project Monitoring Committee.”
He said the Prime Minister set the priority of the six mega projects and ordered the authorities to work accordingly.
Although bridging the mighty Padma was an electoral pledge of the Awami League’s previous term, Bangladesh’s largest infrastructure project was in deep waters due to problems with the World Bank funding.
The government is now going ahead to pull off the project with home funds.
“We are going ahead with the plans to finish the Padma bridge project within four years with our own funds,” the Finance Minister said.
In the $2.91 billion project, the Washington-based global lender along with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Islamic Development Bank (IDB) had pledged loans.
But the ADB, JICA and IDB walked away after the World Bank pulled out raising allegations of graft.
However, JICA’s new Chief Representative in Bangladesh Mikio Hataeda last Saturday had said the development agency was ready for fresh talks over the Padma bridge project if the government wanted.
Muhith said all donors were welcome to join the project.
“We’ll accept funding from any development agencies like the ADB and JICA if they return to the project,” he said quickly adding, “We haven’t formally told them anything.”
Environmentalists and leftist parties have already opposed the setting up of the 1320MW thermal power plant at Rampal, near the Sunderbans.
They say the world’s largest mangrove forest will be endangered if the plant is set up near it.
To smother the criticism, the government has been saying that every means would be adopted to protect the Sunderbans.
The government is stressing the installation of coal-fired power plants to meet the ever-rising power demand.
Hasina’s government had signed agreements with Russia last year to set up a nuclear power plant.
Muhith said the Prime Minister emphasised the need to generate power from various sources.
He said she had told the meeting that a proposal to produce power with joint initiative with India, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar was being considered.
“We want to speed up development work from the very beginning this time.
“We hope to boost Bangladesh’s economic development with the implementation of these projects,” the Finance Minister said.
Source: Bd news24