Two committees formed by the road transport and bridges ministry have recommended opening the bus rapid transit (BRT) infrastructure on the Dhaka airport–Gazipur corridor to all vehicles. The ministry set up the panels last August to identify those responsible for the project’s design flaws and to decide the way forward. A ‘review committee’ of experts from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) has now endorsed their conclusions.

Implementing the recommendations would erase the corridor’s BRT identity, throwing it open to all traffic, and tolls would be collected to recover construction costs. Ministry officials say they plan to place the project before the cabinet to determine its future.

The BRT was conceived as a dedicated bus lane system offering congestion-free travel similar to the metro rail system. Back in 2012, the then-government launched the project to connect Dhaka airport with Gazipur. It has since absorbed BDT 42.5 billion and 97 percent of the work is complete. Experts citing design complications now urge the project be scrapped.

The review committee blamed the consultant firms involved and the officials who planned and implemented the project for those design flaws, and called for them to be held accountable for the colossal waste of public money. The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) and the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) oversaw the core infrastructure. Both agencies operate under the of road transport and bridges ministry.

Asked whether any action would be taken against the officials involved, RHD Chief Engineer Syed Moinul Hasan told Bonik Barta: “Measures will be taken according to existing government rules.”

The project’s consultants were Australia’s SMEC International and Brisbane City Enterprise, France’s Systra SA and Bangladesh’s ACE Consultants Ltd. Their remit covered project management, coordination and skills development, plus supervision of engineering, procurement and construction. Responsibility for devising the operating and business model for the BRT corridor fell jointly to India’s CEPT University and Buet’s Bureau of Research Testing and Consultation. Both later withdrew from the project.

Professor Dr Shamsul Hoque of Buet’s civil engineering department served on the university’s team for the business model work. Explaining the decision to walk away, he told Bonik Barta: “We were consultants on the BRT project. When we saw serious obstacles mounting to implementing an operational model, we decided to withdraw. We realised we could end up carrying the blame for its failure.”

The ministry set up two committees last year to determine blame for the design failures and the way forward. A third review panel, chaired by Dr Hoque himself and staffed by Buet specialists, examined those reports. It concluded that much of the 20-kilometre corridor, particularly its industrial stretches, is unsuited to a BRT system. Service roads and footpaths are absent in many places, and the carriageway narrows to just two lanes at the centre, strangling normal traffic flow. An effective BRT typically requires a wider road. The report warns that opening the project fully would choke the lanes heading toward Mymensingh and northern Bangladesh with severe congestion.

Should the government wish to generate revenue from the project, the report says, it could toll the BRT lanes and operate the corridor as an upgraded expressway, helping to service the debt. Alternatively, it could simply be treated as a general road improvement scheme. A toll plaza could be installed at the Tongi overpass and the existing BRT stations retrofitted for toll collection.

The road transport ministry is now moving to settle the project’s fate, drawing on the two ministry committee reports and the expert review. Habibur Rashid, the state minister responsible for road transport and highways, told Bonik Barta: “Work is underway. No final decision on the project’s future has been taken. The matter will go before the cabinet, and a decision is likely to emerge from there.”