Khulna-Mongla rail line: 3-year project drags to 15 years

The construction of the 70km rail line, which began in 2011 with an initial three-year deadline to connect Mongla Port, the country's second busiest seaport, now faces its eighth extension.

The current tenure is scheduled to expire in October 2024, and during a meeting chaired by Railway Secretary Humayun Kabir in August, the project steering committee decided to request an additional year to complete the project.

The meeting recommended the prompt formulation of a revised development proposal and the completion of all necessary preparations to conduct a trial run on the newly built line by the third week of the upcoming month.

According to the meeting minutes, the physical progress of the project has reached 97.2%, while the financial progress stands at 88.58% as of June. The signalling and telecommunication work has advanced by 75% thus far.

"The contract for signalling and telecommunication work is set to expire by 30 September, excluding the defect liability period. Consequently, an additional year is needed to complete the defect liability period," Sheikh Sakil Uddin Ahmed, additional secretary (development) of the Railways Ministry, told The Business Standard.

He also said some of the components of the project require more money than the allocation, maintaining the total project cost at a fixed level subject to informing the planning commission. The proposed revised project should reflect such changes.

The project will help boost export and import activities through Mongla port, ensuring freight service with neighbouring countries India, Nepal, and Bhutan.

"I hope the authorities will grant the final extension. Otherwise, the project will be terminated with some work left, which is never desirable," Project Director Md Arifuzzaman told TBS.

In a 2020 report, the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Department stated that delays in land acquisition, mid-work changes in consultants, frequent changes of project directors due to retirement and transfers, the addition of critical non-tender items, reliance on sub-contracts by the main contractor, IRCON International, the employment of numerous inexperienced sub-contractors, and frequent changes of sub-agencies have all contributed to delays in the project.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved the "Construction of Khulna-Mongla Port Rail Line" project in December 2010 at a cost of Tk1,721 crore with the support of the first Indian Line of Credit (LOC).

The project's tenure, originally scheduled for completion by December 2013, was first extended by one year and then by an additional 3.5 years, extending it up to June 2018.

The Ecnec approved the first revision with an estimated cost of Tk3,802 crore in 2015, when its progress had reached only 1.2%.

The project experienced three more cost-free extensions, extending it up to December 2022.

In October 2021, the Ecnec approved the second revision of the project with an estimated cost of Tk4,261, with the government providing Tk1,313 crore and Tk2,948 crore sourced from foreign loans.

An additional cost of 148%, or Tk2,540 crore, has been incurred due to the delays.  

Despite the primary goal of the project being to improve the efficiency of the port, the Mongla Port Authority has not yet handed over 90.12 acres of land to the project authority.

Initially, the land was requested at no cost. However, in the meantime, the project authority has provided Tk256 crore as the price, yet the port authority has not yet transferred the land."

Hadiuzzaman, a civil engineering professor at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said, "It is a travesty to the nation to take more than 15 years to complete a project originally planned for three years."

He identified the lack of planning, design, and supervision during the implementation stage as the primary reasons behind the unexpected delays. He further emphasised that delays in infrastructure projects result in both direct costs by increasing expenditure and indirect costs by depriving people of the benefits.