Capital Dredging Cost May Go Up by Tk 590M

A move is underway to raise the cost of capital dredging of 24 inland river routes by Tk 590 million citing the reason of increase in labour cost and dredging area, officials said. The project has also sought one-year extension as an adequate number of dredgers are not available for completion of the task, they added. “Due to the changes in morphology of several river routes, the area of dredging has increased. Besides, the cost of dredging has increased because of rise in labour cost,” joint chief of the Ministry of Shipping (MoS) Enayet Hossain told the FE on Sunday. He said an adequate number of dredgers are not available in private sector for carrying out dredging of the river routes. As a result, Mr Hossain said, completion of the work is getting delayed forcing the authority concerned to extend the tenure of the project by one more year. “We are going to float international tender for dredgers for the project so that the task can be completed without further delay,” he said. Presently, some dredgers of foreign companies are also working under the project. Various inland river routes, including the Mongla-Ghasiakhali channel, are dredged with dredgers of China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd, said Mr Hossain.

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