PM inaugurates Airport-Farmgate part of Dhaka Elevated Expressway

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the 22.5km stretch of Dhaka Elevated Expressway running from the airport to Farmgate today (2 September) at 3:30pm. 

The prime minister travelled on the expressway, making the first toll payment at the airport toll plaza. Later, she attended a rally organised to mark the inauguration of the country's first expressway road at the old trade fair grounds in Agargaon, Dhaka.

The elevated expressway will be open to the public from 6am tomorrow (3 September). A commute on this portion of the expressway from the airport to Farmgate is going to be approximately 10 minutes, according to officials.

In a public notice on Friday (2 September), Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), the implementing agency of the infrastructure, banned two and three-wheeler vehicles at the expressway. 

Moreover, parking, getting out of the vehicle, and standing on the elevated expressway to take pictures have also been announced as prohibited.

The notification also revealed the maximum speed limit on the main elevated expressway is 60km per hour, and the speed limit on the entrance and exit ramps is 40km per hour.

Back in January 2011, the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) signed a deal with the Italian-Thai Development Public Company to build the country's first elevated expressway at a cost of Tk8,703 crore. It was revised in December 2013, and the cost stood at Tk8,940 crore.

Under the project, 31 ramps with a length of 27 kilometres will be constructed along with the 19.73-kilometre main road. In all, the length of the flyover will be 46.73 km.

The construction work was inaugurated twice – first in April 2011 for completion by mid-2014, and then in August 2015. 

However, the formal construction commencement date is 1 January 2020, and a portion of the expressway – stretching from Dhaka airport to Moghbazar – was supposed to be opened by December 2020.

According to officials concerned, the project failed to meet the deadline time and again, mainly due to a crisis of funds of the private investor Italian-Thai, delays in handing over the project, and problems related to land acquisition.

However, the fund-related problem was resolved in 2020 after Italian-Thai handed over 49% of its share to two Chinese companies – China Shandong International Economic and Technical Corporation Group (34%) and Sinohydro Corporation Ltd (15%).