Land acquisition for Padma bridge completes by July

Mawa: The government will acquire 918.76 hectares of land at the Mawa point in Munshiganj and Jazira point in Madaripur by next July to start construction works of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge, officials said.

A bill for enactment of a law on land acquisition for the Padma bridge is expected to be placed in the Jatiya Sangsad during its current session.

The bill titled ‘The Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project (land acquisition) Law-2009’ has already been approved by a cabinet meeting on February 19 last, they added.

‘The law is essential to ensure proper utilisation of the public fund that will be spent to compensate for the loss of landowners,’ said the Setu division secretary, CQK Mushtaq, while talking to New Age.

The cost of land acquisition at the Mawa and Jazira points is estimated by the Setu division, implementing agency of the mega project, at Tk 3.20 billion.

Around 30,000 people will lose their land and be directly affected while 80,000 more will be indirectly affected because of the land acquisition for construction of the bridge, according to a study conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Mushtaq said that a law had existed to carry out the land acquisition programme. But there is no law to prevent the resettlement related disputes, he added.

In absence of such law, additional money had to pay to the fake land owners during the land acquisition for the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge, said land ministry officials.

The new law will help the authorities concerned fix criteria for avoiding land owners’ demand for higher compensation through placement of inflated land price.

Besides, transfer of land during the acquisition process and fake claim can be stopped with the help of fresh law, the officials added.

The land ministry made the proposal to the finance ministry to pursue the Jatiya Sangsad to pass the bill so that 918.76 hectares of land could be acquired at Mawa and Jazira points by next July.

The present government has prioritised the bridge project as it wants to complete the construction works by 2013 to bring the country’s road communications under a single network.

The construction of the 5.8km long and 25m width four-lane Padma bridge with a provision of railway tracks will cost Tk 10,161 crore, which is expected to boost the gross domestic product by 1.2 per cent.

The immediate past military-controlled interim government had promulgated an ordinance on the Padma bridge land acquisition in 2007.

The ordinance has already been reviewed by the present government that will place the bill in the Jatiya Sangsad in a bid to start construction works of the mega bridge project in time.