Rajuk's Jhilmil housing uncertain

FT ONLINE

Jhilmil, one of the largest housing projects for lower and middle-income groups, is yet to make any tangible progress even after two years into a construction deal.

Even the government authorities are still sitting on a pre-design work of the Tk 99.79-billion infrastructure project, according to officials concerned.

To lessen the growing accommodation crisis in the land-starved Dhaka city, the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) came up with the PPP (public-private partnership) scheme.

Rajuk undertook the 'Jhilmil Residential Park' project in the designated Jhilmil area of Keraniganj, on the outskirts of the city, nearly three years ago.

As planned, it signed a deal with Malaysia-based 'BNG Global Holdings and Consortium' in November 2017 to develop 13,720 flats on the project site.

Two years have gone by since the agreement, but the capital development authorities have failed to finish its design yet.

For such an inordinate delay, officials are in fear of missing the 2022 deadline in doing the building work.

A senior Rajuk official, who prefers to remain unnamed, said the key PPP project was due to be done in four years after the deal.

"But since then, we have not seen any visible progress. Even we couldn't complete the design of the structure, although half of the scheduled time has elapsed."

Rajuk has been communicating with the tri-nation consortium of BNG Global Holding SDN BHD, Jianxi Construction Engineering Ltd and Multiplex Holdings Limited, but things remain almost the same.

"It is not possible to finish the project within the deadline if we start construction from today (December 18, 2019)," the official said.

Citing an example of the Uttara apartment project, he said the Malaysian government was supposed to build 8,636 flats in Block-B and Block-C on a G2G (government-to-government) basis.

But having failed to make any progress even after wasting too much time, Rajuk scrapped the deal. "I hope it won't happen in this project," the official cited.

Rejecting claims of no progress, Jhilmil project director Md Nurul Islam said they have already started piling test and they will design the structure after successful completion of the test.

"So, this is progress. We try our level best to provide modern and planned accommodation for our respected citizens," he spelled out.

According to the project, BNG Global will build a total of 85 high-rise buildings. Of them, 60 will be 20- story and the rest be 25-storey, including basement.

The flats will be of three categories-type A (9,120 apartments sizing 1,550 square feet, type B (2,576 flats with 1,750 sft) and type C (2,024 apartments with 2,400 sft).

The earthquake-resistant buildings will be made using the latest construction technology called the Industrial Building System (IBS).

The project will have facilities like a lake, park, playground, walkway, jogging track, artificial shower and wide road on the open space.

School, college, hospital, mosque, market, community space will also be available there.

Regarding the price of a flat, the builder has set Tk 3,696 per sqft per apartment. When Rajuk will sell flats, the value of land will be added to the price.

After the construction is over, the capital development authorities will sell the flats in between Tk 4,600 and Tk 5,100 per square feet.