The district administration was scheduled to hand over the land at a token. According to CPA sources, the district administration of Chattogram fixed the prices of 500 acres of khas land at Tk 1,241 crore.
The Chattogram district administration in a letter informed the CPA management about the changed decision to chare price for the khas land in May. The CPA, however, appealed to the Ministry of Land to hand over the land at token price.
Earlier, the Chattogram district administration had demanded Tk 3,600 crore for the land. CPA sources said that the proposal of the Chattogram district administration had been sent to the Land Ministry in January 2022.
A high level meeting held at Shipping Ministry chaired by ministry Secretary Muhammad Mustafa Kamal on December 27, 2022, directed Chattogram district administration to hand over the land to the Ministry of land within one month at token price. The district administrations re-fixed the land price at Tk 1,241 crore, six months later in May. But the CPA again appealed to the Ministry of Land to hand over the land at token price. The dispute over land price remained unresolved causing the delay in construction of the Bay Terminal.
Out of 500 acres of land, over 100 acres belong to private owners and 203 acres are owned by the Forest Department.
So, the meeting decided to hand over 500 acres of khas land to CPA at a nominal price. CPA sources also said that the Land Minstry had directed the DC to hand over the land to the Shipping Ministry in June 2021 at a nominal price.
But, Chattogram DC asked the CPA to pay Tk 3,600 crore, the full price of the land in question.
In 2013, the CPA had taken the project of construction of three terminals, a 1,500-metre multipurpose terminal, a 1,225-metre container terminal and a 830-metre container terminal.
A German consultancy firm will conduct a feasibility study and detaile drawings and designs and will supervise the construction. Most of the land would be reclaimed from the sea with mud filling.
Under the project, deep navigational Channel would be dug to facilitate berthing vessels with over 14 metre draft. CPA sources said, the World Bank is now interested to finance the both Break water reclamation of land and the Navigational channel. The cost of the Bay Terminal has been estimated at around Tk 4,000 crore. It is expected that the feasibility study and appointment of contractor would be completed in 2023.
Implementation of the project is likely to begin in 2024 for completion in 2027.
