‘Bay Terminal’ mega project stalled amid land acquisition uncertainty

A Bay Terminal mega project of the Chattogram Seaport has stumbled to a halt as 800 acres of land, necessary for the terminal, could not be acquired, officials said.

Chattogram seaport has become one of the busiest and important ports in the world in a decade handling 1.3 lakh TEUs daily. But the port is suffering a regular congestion due to uneven movements of export and import containers.

To ease the port functionalities, and accomplishing international standard service quality, the government has taken a mega project to expand the port at an estimated cost of Tk 21,000 crore. However, the project has yet to acquire required land worth 803 acres.     

The port authorities said they have been writing to the Deputy Commissioner’s Office repeatedly, but they have yet to respond regarding handover of the land. As a result, the completion of the project gets uncertain. Meanwhile the port activities are increasing quite quickly even during the Covid-19 pandemic as the exports and imports are expanding simultaneously, officials said.

Asked about the delay to acquire land, Chattogram DC Mohammad Mominur Rahman said, “After the assessment of the Forest Department, we will start acquiring the land. I hope next week the Forest Department will complete their assessment.”

An executive engineer, however, said the project has been started partially. “According to the plan, we will have to complete the terminal by 2025. But, we are yet to get the 803 acres of land out of the required 871 acres. Already, the physical works on 68 acres of land have started,” said Rafiul Alam, Executive Engineer of Jetty at Chattogram Port Authorities.

He told Business Insider Bangladesh that the port is gradually acquiring land and that the rest of the land will be provided from the government’s khas land.

“We have to wait for DC’s nod. After getting the land, we will appoint a consultant then they will draw a design,” Islam said.

Port users had been urging for the construction of the Bay Terminal as soon as possible.

The President of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries, Jashim Uddin said, “The capacity of Chattogram Port is not being expanded proportionately though our imports and exports are increasing. Therefore, in order to handle the situation, new infrastructure at the port must be created. Bay terminal may be a solution to this end.”

The FBCCI President said, this terminal will increase the capacity a lot. Therefore, starting the construction of Bay Terminal is crucial and should be started soon.

An official of the port, land acquisition branch---on condition of anonymity---said that the land ministry had approved the acquisition of 803 acres of khas (public) land in June, last year.

In 2021, the country’s main seaport handled 3 million TEUS containers. The capacity of the “Bay Terminal” will be around 5 million TEUS.

The project was approved on 24 July 2019.

In 2013, the Chattogram port ranked 86th in Lloyd’s List ranking of the 100 busiest ports in the world. After that, the port’s position continued to improve. In 2019, it reached 58th place, but due to the decrease in container transport in 2020, the port slipped nine notches and ranked 67th.

In 2011, the port was divided into three anchorages, Alpha, Bravo and Charlie, and expanded to seven nautical miles. Earlier, the waters were five nautical miles.

According to a master plan, the port’s water will be expanded to 50 nautical miles to address the size of the country’s imports and exports by 2036.