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The construction of the eight-kilometre Gulistan–Jatrabari flyover is set to begin on Sunday.
   The prime minister, Khaleda Zia, as chief guest of the programme, is expected to lay the foundation stone of the flyover in Gulistan Square at 4:00pm.
   The finance minister, M Saifur Rahman, LGRD and cooperatives minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, communications minister Nazmul Huda and state minister for LGRD and cooperatives Ziaul Haq Zia are expected to attend the programme as special guests.
   The construction of the flyover will begin after the foundation stone is laid on the day, said an official of the Dhaka City Corporation.
   The bridge will be completed in three years. The works required before the construction have already been completed, he said.
   The delay in the flyover construction was due to the excess amount of money charged by the utility service agencies for relocation of the utility installations along the construction site.
   Four utility agencies — Dhaka Electric Supply Authority, Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board and Titas Gas — demanded Tk 126 crore for the relocation jobs, making the construction uncertain. They earlier claimed about Tk 25 crore for the job.
   The government in February decided to begin the construction without relocating the utility installations as suggested by a committee headed by the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology vice-chancellor, Mohammad Alee Murtaza.
   This decision on the construction without the relocation of the utility installations, the official said, will save the government Tk 116 crore on top of the project cost of Tk 700 crore.
   The flyover will have four lanes, seven entrances and 13 ramps. The Belhasa-Acom JV will implement the flyover on a build-own-operate-transfer scheme. Belhasa will be funding the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the project during the concession period, when Belhasa will have the rights to charge and collect tolls.
   The concession period will span 24 years, and the company will recover the cost from tolls taken from vehicles within the period, the official said.
   This will be the third flyover in the Dhaka city and will be the longest among the three.
   The first flyover, at Mohakhali, was commissioned on October 4, 2004. The 1.12km Mohakhali flyover has four lanes and two ramps.
   The 1.9km Khilgoan flyover is the second flyover. It was commissioned on March 23, 2005.

The recent spell of torrential rain heavily damaged the roads in the Chittagong city, which has been causing inconvenience for the residents for a week now.
   The Chittagong City Corporation officials said the five-day downpour from July 20 damaged almost a half of the city’s 517-kilometre metalled road and 678-kilometer brick road.
   Some of the city roads— Sheikh Mujib Road, Station Road, Strand Road, Port Connecting Road, CDA Avenue, Sirajuddowla Road, Jakir Hossain Road, Jubili Road, Agrabad Access Road, Arakan Road, Kaptai Road and Airport Road— were badly damaged with potholes on these roads when the bitumen carpeting of the roads were also washed away by rain water in some areas.
   A number of accidents are taking place in the city because of the rugged condition of the roads.
   The civil engineering department chair at the Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Swapan Kumar Palit, said the city roads were heavily damaged because of faulty construction process.
   ‘The city has inadequate sewers and water stagnation for long only adds to the damage,’ he said.
   The city corporation said the condition worsened as the telephone board had not completed road digging jobs for cable repair on time.
   ‘The city roads in some places sank as the telephone board had not filled up the places it dug for cable repair,’ the corporation’s chief engineer Mokhter Alam told New Age.
   He said they had asked the board to fill up the places. He said the corporation would soon begin a project to repair the damaged roads.

The prices of red chili, onions and chicken increased further in the city kitchen markets in the past week because of short supply.
   The prices of other major essential commodities such as rice and vegetables remained somewhat stable because of stable supply, the traders said.
   Red chili sold for the prices between Tk 110 and Tk 130 a kilogram in the city markets on Friday. The prices ranged between Tk 110 and Tk 120 a week ago and for Tk 80 a month ago.
   ‘Tight supply of red chili pushed up the price,’ said Akber Mia, a retailer at Shantinagar.
   The traders said bad local harvest of chili because of a near drought situation during cultivation created the supply shortage.
   The annual consumption of red chili is estimated at around 2 lakh tonnes and a significant portion of the demand is met with the chili imported from India and Myanmar.
   Broiler sold between Tk 90 and Tk 95 a kilogram, increasing by Tk 5 in a week. The traders said high price of day-old chicks and poultry feeds had pushed up the prices.
   Except for onions, vegetable prices remained somewhat stable in the week. Potato and okra sold for Tk 16 a kilogram at Shantinagar on Friday. Bitter gourd sold for Tk 20 a kilogram, aubergine for Tk 24 and puishak between Tk 10 and Tk 12.
   The traders onion price was on the rise as supply reduced because of the beginning of monsoon.
   Posting an increase by Tk 2 a kilogram, onions imported from India sold for Tk 16 and the local variety sold between Tk 23 and Tk 24.
   The prices of fishes remained at the earlier high level. The local variety of katla sold for Tk 250 a kilogram at Nayatola Bazar on Friday. Burmese rohita sold for Tk 150 a kilogram, medium-sized poa for Tk 220 and mola for Tk 140.
   Red meat prices remained high, with beef selling for Tk 150 a kilogram and mutton between Tk 200 and Tk 220.
   Coarse rice sold between Tk 18 and Tk 19 a kilogram, fine variety Miniket between Tk 28 and Tk 29, sugar between Tk 54 and Tk 56 and red lentils between Tk 58 and Tk 60.

The manager of the Employment Bank’s Feni branch was mugged at Farmgate in Dhaka on Thursday night.
   The victim, Atiqul Haque, 36, said the driver of the CNG-run auto-rickshaw he hired for Green Road from Mohakhali slowed down the vehicle at Farmgate, allowing three muggers to get in.
   ‘They rubbed chilli power in my eyes and dropped me near the Polytechnic Masjid Market after taking away my travel bag, and Tk 10,000,’ he said.
   His friends later took him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
   The doctors said although the corneas of Atiq’s eyes were safe despite bleeding, he would have to face visual problem for at least a week.

Interns at Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital, known as Mitford Hospital, went on an indefinite strike on Thursday to push for their two-point demands.
   They began the strike demanding residential facilities and salary in arrears for five months, the interns said.
   They said although the interns do not get residential facilities as the old interns, who completed internship two to five years ago, keep occupying the beds reserved for the interns.
   The authorities do not pay any attention to solve their problems, they said. As the interns abstained from work and were busy demonstrating, hundreds of patients were deprived of medical treatment.
   The leaders of the Intern Doctors’ Association of Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital said they had not received their salaries for five months. They said the authorities should arrange for pay their salary during first five days of each month.
   They said if the authorities failed to meet their demands, they would initiate tougher movement to press home their demands.

The police busted a printing pres where counterfeit currencies were made at Adabar in Dhaka early Friday.
   Forged notes, computer, three printers and some other materials were seized from the place.
   A police team raided the house on Road 12 of the Baitul Aman Housing Society at about 3:00am and found the press in a ground-floor flat of the five-storey building, owned by an expatriate physician, Alamgir Hossain.
   The press owner, Kausar Hossain, had managed to get away before the police raided.
   The police detained his wife, Shaheen Begum, and seized 200 notes of Tk 500 denomination. A scanner, 300 plastic packets, thread and ink were also seized.

Rain or thunder shower accompanied by temporary gusty or squally wind is likely at most places all over Bangladesh except for the Khulna division and at many places over the Khulna division with moderately heavy to heavy rainfall at places over the Dhaka, Chittagong and Rajshahi divisions.
   Day temperature may remain nearly unchanged during the period, said the Met Office in a forecast on Friday. The highest temperature on Friday, 35.5 degrees Celsius, was recorded in Chittagong and the lowest, 22.3 degrees Celsius, in Dhaka.
   The sun sets in the capital city at 6:43pm today and will rise at 5:11am on Sunday.

Prisoner dies
in CMCH
A prisoner of the Chittagong central jail died early Friday in Chittagong Medical College Hospital of a disease reportedly not diagnosed. The dead was Mahmudul Hoque, 30, from Naliabad of Satkania in Chittagong. The jail officials said Mahmudul fell sick on Sunday and he was admitted to the hospital where the physicians failed to diagnose the disease till his death on Friday. The acting jailor said the prisoner was an accused in six criminal cases.

Three injured in
Ctg landslide
Three persons were injured critically in a landslide at Khulshi in the city Friday morning. Harun, 30, Nuruddin, 35, and Chan Miah, 35, all workers of a crockery shop at Kushumbagh, sustained injuries as a big chunk of mud of a hill collapsed on their shop at around 9:00am. They were admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.

Tremor jolts Chittagong
A tremor measuring 3.9 on the Richter scale jolted the Chittagong city and its adjoining areas early Friday. Sources in the Seismic Observatory Centre said the tremor lasted for 18 seconds from 2:51:46pm, and the epicentre of the quake was 163 kilometres off the city, but its direction could not be measured. No casualties were, however, reported. The sources said it was the seventh quake in Chittagong in the current year.
— New Age