The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has approved 10 projects worth Tk 7,985.51, including establishing 5G services at villages.
The approval came from a meeting of the ECNEC held with its chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
The premier joined the meeting from her official Ganobhaban residence while ministers, state ministers, planning commission members and secretaries concerned joined the meeting from the NEC Conference Room in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan said that a total of 10 projects were approved on Tuesday involving an overall cost of Tk 7,985.51 crore.
“Of the total project cost, Tk 6,660.29 crore will come from the government of Bangladesh, Tk 137.09 crore from the concerned organization’s own fund and the rest Tk 1,188.13 crore as project assistance,” he added.
The planning minister said that Teletalk Bangladesh Limited under the Post and Telecommunication Division will implement one of the projects on expansion of Teletalk network by November 2023.
He said the main project objectives include improving the qualitative improvement of the existing Teletalk network to provide modern 4G based services to the rural people at an affordable price side by side modernizing the existing core and transmission network of Teletalk suitable for providing 5G technology based services.
Of the approved 10 projects, nine are new while one is a revised project.
This includes the Bailey and Other Risky Bridge Replacement Project (Rangpur Zone) at a cost of Tk 861.39 crore. The project will be implemented by the Department of Road Transport and Highways, Roads and Highways (RHD).
The cost of the project titled “Development of Bagerhat-Rampal-Mongla District Highway at Proper Quality and Width” has been estimated at Tk 467.76 crore. The project will be implemented by the Department of Roads and Highways from July this year to June 2024.
The cost of the project “Important Road Development in Keraniganj Upazila of Dhaka District” has been estimated at Tk 1,090 crore. The project will be implemented by the Department of Local Government Engineering (LGED) from April to March this year. The cost of the “Char Development and Settlement Project-Bridging (additional funding, LGED portion)” project has been estimated at Tk 106.85 crore. The project will be implemented by the local government engineering department.
The government has taken a project to expand the Teletalk tower in the village. Tk 2,204.39 crore has been earmarked for the project “Expansion of Teletalk's network at village level and modernization of network to provide 5G services.”
After the approval of the project by the Department of Posts and Telecommunications, the project will be implemented by Teletalk Bangladesh Limited from July this year to December 2023.
On the other hand, the project titled “collection and preservation of audio-visual documents of the liberation war from domestic and foreign sources and increasing the capacity of Bangladesh Film Archive,” will cost Tk 62.68 million.
The cost of the “Rural Livelihood Project-Phase- 3” project of the Rural Development and Cooperatives Department has been estimated at Tk 928.06 crore. The project will be implemented by Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB) from July this year to June 2025.
The Ministry of Water Resources and the Bangladesh Water Development Board will implement the “Dudhkumar River Management and Development Flowing through Kurigram District” project at a cost of Tk 692.86 crore.
The main cost of the revised project for integrated livestock development in coastal chars was Tk 95.34 crore.
This time the cost of the project has been increased by another Tk 59.34 crore. It was supposed to start in July 2018 and end in 2021. However, in the revised project, it has been extended till June 2023.
The Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources has taken up the project “Construction of Solar Park, Madarganj 100 MW Solar Power Plant at Jamalpur” at a cost of Tk 1,511.79 crore. The project will be implemented from September this year to August 2024.
