3-Year Duration in Chittagong Waterlogging Project Extended to 11 Years

The massive infrastructure project initiated to prevent waterlogging in Chittagong, Bangladesh's largest port city, has turned into a complete crisis due to inadequate planning and hasty decisions. Aimed at re-excavating, widening, and repairing the city's waterways, this complex undertaking is experiencing massive delays despite initially being planned for a much shorter completion time. In fact, because the project's feasibility studies and site surveys were inadequately conducted from start to finish, officials encountered consecutive unexpected technical challenges when they mobilized on site. Despite the works continuing for over nine years, none of the initially anticipated problems have been fully resolved. Finally, citing constantly increasing complexities, officials were forced to extend the project's completion timeline by another two years, thus stretching this project—originally designed for three years—to a total of 11 years.

This massive undertaking, managed by the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) and titled 'Re-excavation, Widening, Repair, and Development of Canals to Alleviate Waterlogging in Chittagong City,' had drawn attention with its ambitious goals. In order not to increase the project's cost, the agency made some structural revisions in its final phase and updated the completion deadline to Haziran 2028. To balance the budget, the scope of silt traps, drainage channel expansions, and pavement works has been severely narrowed. The total cost reached 8.626 crore takas (approximately one billion dollars) in the first revision made in the Aralık month of 2023, and was subsequently reduced to 8.591 crore takas with a second revision. In 2017, when the project was officially approved at its inception, this cost was calculated at only 5.616 crore takas.

Despite four different projects being implemented over the last decade to solve the city's waterlogging problem, and more than 10.408 crore takas being spent as of Mart 2023, citizens are still exposed to the devastating effects of floods. On 28 Nisan, the city struggled with one of the most severe waterloggings in recent years, and the infrastructure inadequacy was laid bare once again. Experts explicitly state that the fundamental reason for this failure is the negligence during the project's design phase. Scientists emphasize that a comprehensive site survey, water flow analyses, detailed examination of tidal fluctuations, and a holistic assessment of existing water storage areas are mandatory, yet none of these were properly executed. A review of the documents also reveals that due to the absence of these comprehensive surveys, no physical progress was made on site during the first one and a half to two years of the project.

Although internal agency reports indicate that as of Mayıs, the current waterlogging project is 98 percent complete, technical teams are still working on two out of 36 canals (Hijra and Jamal Khan). Not only technical shortcomings but also complex financing issues have played a role in the prolongation of this process. Explaining the rationale behind the extension, CDA's Chief Engineer and Project Director Ahmad Moinuddin pointed to the change in how the majority of the project is financed. While it was previously planned that a portion of the project would be covered through CDA's own equity resources and loans, it is now proposed that almost all funds will be allocated as a government grant. However, since the government decided to distribute this fund in phases over two years rather than paying it at once, the project's completion date had to be extended once again.

Under these recent adjustments, 8.487 crore takas of the total project budget of 8.591 crore takas will be provided directly as a state grant. For the remaining 103 crore takas, a loan will be taken from the government at a 5 percent interest rate with a 20-year maturity. Although savings are targeted on asphalt roads, pavements, and some silt trap systems due to budget cuts, the costs in the engineering aspect of the work have multiplied. An additional payment of 453 crore takas will be required across 13 different items, such as canal excavation, drainage infrastructure maintenance, and new bridge constructions. Evaluating the situation, Engineer Delowar Majumdar, former President of the Chittagong branch of the Bangladesh Mühendisler Kurumu (Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh), summarized that the CDA undertook this massive project hastily and superficially without mastering the subject, resulting in a story of failure that would last for years.