Mongla-Khulna rail line to be opened by Dec: Sujan
284
File Photo
KHULNA, Jan 31, 2021 (BSS) – Railways Minister Md Nurul Islam Sujan today said that the 64-kilometer long new broad gauge rail line from Mongla to Khulna would be inaugurated by December this year as nearly seventy-five per cent of the construction work has already been completed.
“After completion of the construction of the Mongla-Khulna railway line, there would be a radical change in the rail communications in the south eastern region of the country,” said the minister on Saturday after inspecting the construction project.
He added that the neighboring countries including Nepal, Bhutan and India will get the opportunity to increase trade facilities with Bangladesh by using the second largest sea port which would boost the country’s economic growth.
Prime Ministers Office has given nod to the plan of reconstructing of the Kamalapur Railway Station after demolishing the existing one. Sources from the PMs office confirmed the development on Sunday. The decision was taken at a meeting presided over Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas
The government had approved the Khulna-Mongla Port Rail Line Project in December 2010 and the construction of the 64.75km rail line was supposed to be completed within three years.
But the project s physical work began around six years after the approval, due to complications over various issues, including land acquisition and changes in the design. And till December last year, the project witnessed 75 percent progress.
In the meantime, the cost of the project being implemented with India s first line of credit rose to Tk 3,801 crore, which is 120 percent higher than the original estimates.
Things do not end here.
The project authorities have recently placed a revision proposal to the Bangladesh Railway, seeking another Tk 997.35 crore and one year extension of the project s current deadline, which is June this year. The deadline had already been extended several times.
The Prime Minister s Office has given its consent to shifting the iconic Kamalapur Station Plaza further north, which would mean dismantling the structure and erecting a similar one in the new location. The station building would be shifted to the northern side to accommodate the scissor crossing of MRT-6 [Mass Rapid Transit-6] line…, reads a PMO document. And Bangladesh Railway and DMTCL [Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited] have already reached a consensus in this regard, reads the minutes of a meeting presided over by Prime Minister s Principal Secretary Ahmad Kaikaus.
The meeting took place in December last year and the minutes were released earlier this month.
The railways ministry has reconstituted a committee investigating a South Korean company for violating some clauses of the contract under which 10 locomotives have been supplied to the Bangladesh Railway.
The changes in the probe committee came more than three months after Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan ordered the formation of the committee, which was supposed to complete the work within 15 working days.
In the meantime, the locomotives have been lying idle at a railways workshop in Chattogram s Pahartoli for around five months, at a time when the BR is struggling to run its operation with a big number of outdated engines.