A departure from the norm

We have written much about development projects facing major hurdles in the country that continue to suffer years of delay and cost overruns. Hence, it is very refreshing to find three major bridges being constructed by Japanese contractors that are not only going to commissioned ahead of time, but well within budget too! The three bridges, being constructed on Sitalakkhya, Meghna and Gumti rivers, are on track. What comes as a surprise that our project officials were able to knock down project costs by nearly Tk800 crores that involved painstaking bargaining of prices on every component of the deal, and this shows that when there is intent on our side, we can do a good job at negotiating prices that are beneficial for the country.

The question here is that when it is possible to keep a Tk7,677 crore project on track through proper monitoring, why cannot we replicate the experience across the board for all major infrastructure projects? How is it that many projects, being built by other foreign contractors are years behind in delivery and handover? Policymakers should scrutinise what our Roads and Bridges Division authorities did right to make this happen because it is not merely a question of cost overruns that adversely affect development in this country; the years of delays effectively throttles the economy from performing positively. Should the handover of these projects happen on time, we hope the results are emulated so that future critical projects can be completed on time.