Upgradation hangs in limbo

The Bangladesh Railway is yet to complete the upgradation of the 16 kilometre railway line between Dhaka and Narayanganj Station. The work on turning the single railway line into a double one remains halted after complications centring 31 kathas of land arose in the Chashara Railway station area.  

Insiders said the railway had earlier acquired the land for building another dual-gauge track in parallel with the existing metre-gauge one. But they have since lost the land due to a dispute centring private ownership.

Due to a shortage of funds for land acquisition, authorities are excluding the two-kilometre stretch of Chashara-Narayanganj from that line, said sources, adding that although the project started in October 2015, contractors began physical work in February 2018.

If the railway is not a full double line, the local people think that the investment of around Tk 650 crore for the project will not be beneficial.

At present there is a metre gauge railway between Dhaka and Narayanganj. The railway from Kamalapur Railway Station to Jurain Railway gate is being doubled through Padma bridge rail connection project.

Bangladesh Railway is working to upgrade the entire railway line to double line by constructing a new dual gauge line from Jurain to Narayanganj. The cost for this is Tk 632.79 crore. The main objective of the project is to build a dual gauge railway line parallel to the existing metre gauge railway line in the Dhaka-Narayanganj section.

The work of upgrading the entire railway to double line has been hampered in the area of Chashara Railway Station. In 1882, the then Eastern Bengal Railway acquired land 62 feet wide from Chashara to Narayanganj Railway Station to build the railway.

However, 31 kathas of land from Railgate 1 to Chashara station was recorded in private ownership in CS and RS survey.

Railway officials did not even know that the acquired land was valuable. When the Development Project Proposal (DPP) for the construction of a new dual gauge railway in Dhaka-Narayanganj was prepared, they assumed that the ownership of the land was in the hands of the railways.

Therefore, no funds have been allocated for land acquisition in the DPP of the project.

Land acquisition was first noticed during the design of the new railway. Going to the field level, the project participants saw that a large part of the land acquired in 1882 has been recorded in the name of local residents in the CS and RS survey.

At present, buildings from tin shed to seven-storey have been constructed on these lands.

Project officials have estimated that the cost of reclaiming the 31 kathas of land that was evicted under the existing Land Acquisition Act will be around Tk 638 million.

According to the Public Works Department (PWD) Narayanganj rate, the cost of compensation for the installations on this land will be Tk 49.64 crore. In all, the railway will have to spend Tk 133.50 crore to re-occupy the degraded land.

Railway officials have decided to continue work on the Dhaka-Narayanganj railway, excluding the Chashara-Narayanganj section, in view of the fact that the price of land is high in the first place and audit objections may arise in case of re-acquisition of the land once acquired.

DN Majumder, director general of Bangladesh Railway, said at a meeting of the verification committee of the project held recently that it was very important to double line the Chashara-Narayanganj section.

Asked about the overall situation, Project Director Selim Rauf said the project is being implemented through government and foreign aid funds. No funds have been allocated for land acquisition in the project.

As a result, 31 kathas of land in Chashara station area cannot be acquired. The line will be upgraded to double line through acquisition of this land in future.

According to media reports, In 2015, the ECNEC approved the construction of a dual-gauge line which would run parallel to the existing metre-gauge line on Dhaka-Narayanganj route and the project was to be completed at a cost of Tk 378.73 crore out of which the GoB fund was Tk 129.18 crore and the Japanese Debt Relief Grant Assistance-Counterpart Fund was Tk 249.54 crore.

Initially the project was scheduled to be completed by June 2018, a deadline which was extended till June 2019 for the first time due to a delay in land handover and for the second time extended till June 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak, he said, adding that the deadline was extended twice without increasing the project cost.

The overall progress of the project has exceeded 71 per cent.

According to the last project evaluation committee meeting, held in February this year, the project cost was proposed to increase by 106.58 per cent which stood at Tk 782.41 crore and the deadline was to be extended till June 2023.

Officials said that the existing metre-gauge track on the route weighed 34.03 kilograms while the new dual-gauge track would weigh 60 kilograms.

The rail level of the new line would be around 35.2 centimetres higher from that of the existing line for carrying the extra weight which would create problems at level crossings where the two lines cross over, they said.