The cost of infrastructure projects in Bangladesh is much higher than that in India, China and even Europe.
The World Bank in Dhaka revealed the information in a post budget press conference at its office on Tuesday.
Quoting a previous study conducted by the bank, World Bank officials said that corruption and lack of competitive bidding should be considered as major reasons for high cost of the projects.
WB South Asia Finance and Poverty group lead economist Zahid Hissain said that delay in project implementation was one of the main reasons behind the high project implementation costs.
He said that the construction cost of Rangpur-Hatikumrul, Dhaka-Sylhet, Dhaka-Mawa, Dhaka-Chittagong and Dhaka-Mymensingh
highways ranged from $2.5 million to $11.9 million per kilometre.
The cost of the construction of four-lane highways per kilometre with land acquisition fees is $1.1m-1.3m in India, $1.3m-1.6m in China and $3.5m-$2.5m in Europe for converting two-lane highways into four-lane.
The World Bank officials noted that high project cost was undermining the quality of the annual development programme, implementation rate of which remained poor despite introduction of fast-track projects and public private partnership.
Source: New Age
