Dev of Tangail industrial park comes to a halt

Works at the Tangail Industrial Park project, an ‘A’ category development project, came to halt because of bureaucratic tangles and a sluggish implementation process.

Despite extending the deadline by four years, the implementing agency now seeks further extension of the deadline and the Planning Commission responded to the proposal in negative.

Industries Ministry’s annual report 2021-22 cited that only earth-filling works of the site area of the project, one of the election pledges of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, have been completed yet.

The Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation, the implementation agency of the project, recently sent a proposal to the Planning Commission seeking further extension of the project deadline. The initial deadline was 2018 which was later extended to June 2022.

The Planning Commission disagreed to extend the deadline further and sought an explanation from the implementing agency and the ministry concerned why they have taken more time to implement the project.

Project Director Md Delwar Hossain said the Deputy Commissioner’s Office of Tangail handed them over 50 acres of land after acquiring those in 2020 and then they began earth filling.

“We had to revise the cost of this project for the changes in the schedule of rates for the government’s development works. The rates have increased much more in 2022 than what was in 2018.”

“We are trying to extend the project deadline but the authorities concerned are yet to respond positively,” he said.

Saiful Alam, Manager (Acting) Project Management and Implementation Division at the BSCIC, said activities of this project now came to a halt following a ‘negative decision’ from the Planning Commission.

Asked why they need more time to implement this project, Saiful told The Business Post that the most of time before the deadline was passed for getting land acquisition, funds were not released in time and it took longer time for earth filling. He also blamed the lack of coordination among authorities concerned for missing the deadline.

“We are trying to resume work on this project and that’s why we proposed the planning ministry for extending its deadline. If we get a positive nod, we expect to finish the project by 2024,” he added.

The initial allocation for the project was Tk 164 crore which was revised to Tk 295.75 crore. Of that amount, Tk 235.67 has already been spent. Nearly 82.88 per cent of infrastructural development works have been completed while economic development stands at 79.69 per cent.

The executive committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the project in 2015.

On completion, 271 industrial plots will be set up on a 50-acre land, where employment opportunities will have created nearly 6,500 people.