Ecnec Meeting
Tk 1,874cr okayed for river dredging
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) yesterday approved a Tk 1,874 crore project to dredge 2,500km waterways to make them navigable throughout the year.
The capital dredging was one of the seven projects the Ecnec approved at a meeting at the NEC conference room in the capital's Shere Bangla Nagar with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Acting Planning Division Secretary Bhuiyan Shafiqul Islam told reporters that the seven projects involve a cost of Tk 4,648 crore.
“Of the total cost, Tk 3,975 crore will be provided by the government while Tk 673 crore will come as project assistance,” he added.
The capital dredging project covers 24 of the country's 53 river routes.
River routes are getting choked because of inflows of silt making navigation difficult.
Planning Commission sources said during monsoon the rivers carry about 2.4 billion silt accounting for 19 per cent of the total silt carried by rivers across the world. Now country's river ways have reduced to 6,000km, down from 24,000 in 1963.
The Ecnec meeting okayed another project titled "Establishment of four marine academies in Bangladesh" at a cost of Tk 342 crore. The academies would be established at Pabna, Barisal, Rangpur and Sylhet.
A project to establish fire service and civil defence stations at 156 Upazilla headquarters at a cost of Tk 889 crore has also been approved.
The other projects are: " Introduction of machine readable passport and machine readable visa in Bangladesh (2nd revised) project" (Tk 710 crore-GoB); "English in action project" (Tk 3 crore-GoB, Tk 141 crore-PA); "Teaching quality improvement-2 in secondary education project" (Tk 114 crore-GoB, Tk 532 crore-PA) and "Conservation and improvement of native sheep through community farming and commercial farming project" (Tk 43 crore-GoB).
Ministers, advisers to the prime minister, members of the Planning Commission, secretaries and officials concerned were present at the meeting.
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