CHATTOGRAM, July 12: The implementation of Bay Terminal, a giant project of the Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) has been expedited with the acquisition of 500 acres of land, approval of US$650 million by the World Bank for the project and signing of an agreement with Abu Dhabi Port group for investing one $1billion for the Multi-Purpose terminal.
According to CPA sources, the Chattogram district administration will furnish a lease deed with CPA by July 20 for acquisition of 500 acres of land for construction of the Bay Terminal.
Besides, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors had approved $650 million to help Bangladesh invest in infrastructure critical for developing the Bay Terminal deep seaport, and signing of an agreement with Abu Dhabi Port group with the Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) for investing $1billion for the construction of the Bay Terminal.
"We have been acquiring over 500 acres of land for construction of the Bay Terminal within the current month," said a spokesman of CPA on Friday.
Earlier, the CPA had deposited three challan of Tk 3 crore and three only in favour of Chattogram district administration for lease of over 500 acres of khas land for the construction of the Bay Terminal. Accordingly, the Chattogram district administration had furnished all documents for handing over the land to CPA.
Meanwhile, the CPA had taken up the project for the construction of three terminals, 1,500-metre multipurpose terminal, 1,225-metre container terminal and 830-metre container terminal in 2013. Later on CPA decided to build another 1,225-metre-long terminal there with four jetties, enabling the terminal to berth four to five vessels at a time for handling gas and oil consignments.
For construction of the Bay Terminal, CPA needs 2,500 acres of land.
Nearly 878 acres of land are now available from the government Khas land and private land. But most of the land should be reclaimed from the sea with mud filling.
Of the 878 acres of land include, over 66 acres of land from private owners while 124 acres of land from Forest Department, 188 acres are disputed and 500 acres belong to Khas land.
Earlier, the CPA owned 66 acres of land of private owners after acquisition by the District administration.
The rest 1,622 acres of land will be acquired with Break water reclamation.
The World Bank is now interested to finance both the Break water reclamation of land and the Navigational channel. The cost of those two portions of the Bay Terminal has been estimated at around Tk 4,000 crore.
