Café attack drives up construction costs of three bridges by Tk 780m

The militant attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in the capital back in July, 2016 has escalated costs of building the second Kanchpur, Meghna and Gumti bridges.

The costs spiralled since work was suspended for several weeks following the incident and additional manpower had to be engaged to complete the project.

The cabinet committee on public procurement approved Wednesday a proposal of the Roads and Highways Division in this connection.

The proposal said the cost of the projects went up by Tk 780 million due to the delay in work and engaging manpower for additional days.

The government of Japan funded construction of the three bridges through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Talking to reporters after the meeting, finance minister A H M Mustafa Kamal said the incident at Holey Artisan Bakery in city's Gulshan area had brought to a standstill foreign-funded development projects.

After the incident in July 2016, many foreign nationals left the country. Some 29 people were killed in the incident, of which 18 were foreign nationals.

Seven staffers of JICA, who were technical advisers of the organisation were killed in the incident.

Mr Kamal said just after the incident many foreigners left the country, thus the construction work of the bridges had remained stalled for weeks.

As a result, he said, the work was delayed for weeks, which in turn caused cost spiral.

The cabinet committee in the meeting also approved five other proposals involving over Tk 22 billion, which include setting up of a cement plant by Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC), and equipment procurement for a 225 -megawatt power plant.

The other proposals are setting up of a 400 megawatt renewable liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fired power plant in Narayanganj, and the procurement of 16,000 kilometre conductor, ACSR and Bare for a project under the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board.

Mr Kamal said the meeting approved setting up of the renewable LNG based power plant in Narayanganj subject to some conditions.

He said a consortium of Anlima Textile Ltd and GE Capital Global Energy Investments BV will build the plant over 22 years, but an agreement with the government will be reviewed every five years.