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The Dhaka City Corporation has decided to scrap the Tk 700-crore contract for 8-kilometre Gulistan-Jatrabari Flyover due to allegations of document forgery by construction company Belhasa-Accom JV and Associates Ltd.
   ‘We have made the contract ineffective because of allegations of malpractice in bank guarantee,’ said Dhaka city mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka.
   DCC chief executive officer Mohammad Alauddin said on Monday that they would immediately send the letter signed by the mayor declaring the contract null and void to the Belhasa Accom JV.
   The decision has irked the company, which is planning to take the DCC to court.
   ‘We will file a case against the corporation’s decision of cancelling the contract upon receipt of the notice formally,’ Shahjahan Ali Patoari, deputy project manager of the firm, told New Age on Monday.
   The DCC recently detected that the company submitted fake bank guarantee to get the huge construction job.
   The mayor denied any faults committed by the city corporation in awarding the job. ‘On our part, we followed necessary rules and regulations.’
   He pointed out that the Bangladesh Bank had given clearance during the disposal process of the flyover tender.
   Oriental Bank, the troubled private commercial bank which was recently sold out to a foreign banking company, was the guarantor.
   The Belhasa official, too, claimed that the bank guarantee they had submitted with other relevant documents was vetted by the Bangladesh Bank at the time and the city corporation had approved that after necessary inquiry.
   ‘We will fight to the last to restore the work order rather than seeking compensation for the losses. As we understand, the city corporation cannot cancel it based on such allegations,’ said Patoari, who was yet to receive the cancellation letter.
   Asked why the city corporation had taken such a decision so late, the city mayor said the belated action was because of the belated detection of irregularities in preparing bank documents.
   Khoka, however, said the city corporation and the government together would face legal battle, should Belhasa go to the court seeking reversal to the official decision to make the contract ineffective.
   The then Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance government had in 2003 taken the initiative to construct a flyover linking Gulistan and Jatrabari on build-own-operate and transfer basis.
   The DCC and the Belhasa signed the contract of the flyover in June 2005. Former prime minister Khaleda Zia laid the foundation stone of it in June 2006, but the construction works continued for a few months.
   Experts and officials had smelt a rat earlier in the Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover project, saying the deal unduly favoured the construction company and paved the way for it to take home eight times its investment in 24 years.
   The World Bank consultant for the project, Atul Bhobey, in October 2003 recommended Malaysian Cord-Percon JV that offered to construct the flyover for Tk 503 crore while the other Malaysian company, Projalma Construction, quoted Tk 614 crore.
   The then cabinet committee first disagreed with many conditions of the work order for Belhasa and sent the file back, but later approved the same in 2005 for reasons unknown, the city corporation sources said.
   The flyover construction would cost the Belhasa-Acom JV about Tk 500 crore, but the tolls accrued over the 24-year period under the build-operate-transfer scheme would be somewhere near Tk 4,000 crore, experts estimated.
   With the projected increase in traffic, the company would take three to five years to recover the investment, while the remaining years of the toll collection period would be left for making profit, they pointed out.
   Experts of BUET who were assigned to submit their recommendation about the flyover design in April 2007 suggested dropping five ramps out of 13 and adding two new down ramps near the Rajdhani Super Market and at the Gulistan end for smooth vehicular movement.
   They said if the flyover was built as per the flawed design, it would rather increase the traffic jam at some points.
   Khoka said the ramps were kept in the design for the easy movement of the people of adjoining areas.

At least three workers were killed and 15 others
   injured early Monday in a boiler explosion at a steal and re-rolling mill at Kanchpur in Sonargaon upazila of Narayanganj.
   The deceased were identified as mill workers Mazharul Islam Moza, 22, Rabiul Haque, 21, and Amir Hossain alias Mujahid, 25.
   The first two were killed on the spot while Mujahid died from his wounds at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Monday morning.
   The police said the run-down boiler of South-East Steal and Re-Rolling Mills exploded with a big bang at around 12:30am.
   The explosion turned the whole structure of the mill into debris.
   Fire fighting engines
   from Demra and Hajiganj rushed to the scene and rescued the injured and recovered the bodies of the two workers killed on the spot from under the debris.
   Of the injured, nine were admitted to the DMCH in
   critical condition and the rest were treated at different local clinics.
   The fire service and civil defence officials named the run-down condition of the old boiler as the main reason for the accident.

Law enforcers on Monday arrested eight more persons for their suspected involvement in Friday’s rail clip theft from Banani in the city and recovered 160 stolen rail clips from their possession.
   The Government Railway Police arrested Kabir Hossain, 35, Ripon Chandra Karmakar, 24, Monowar Hossain, 27, Kajol Rahman, 26, Tanvirur Rahman, 25, Akhter Hossain, 25, Abu Sayeed Selim alias Kobra, 32, and Khalilur Rahman, 43, at Tejgaon railway station and in Banani rail crossing area. With them, law enforcers so far have arrested 14 people in this connection.
   The police earlier held Shawpan Bhuiyan, Abul Hossain, Jamal, Liton, Saiful Madal, and Delowar Hossain on suspicion of their involvement in the theft. The investigation officer of the case, Sayedur Rahman, produced the six arrested before the court of chief metropolitan magistrate of Dhaka, requesting the court to remand the arrested in police custody for five days. The court granted a two-day remand for interrogation.
   Train communications between Dhaka and other parts of the country were disrupted on Friday for an hour and a half as around 3,500 rail clips, each weighing about 900 grams, which fastened the rail lines to the sleepers of a two-kilometre stretch from Banani level crossing to Staff Road went missing.
   Bangladesh Railway deputy assistant engineer Abdul Latif Talukdar filed the case with the GRP on Friday night.
   Meanwhile, the three-member probe committee comprising Bangladesh Railway engineers Noor Mohammad and Abul Kashem and commandant Faruk Ahmed on Monday visited the scene and talked with some witnesses.
   The committee members directed the authorities concerned to increase security to avert such incidents in the future. The committee is likely to submit its report on the incident to the railway authorities on Tuesday.
   The officer-in-charge of Dhaka GRP police station, Mahbubur Rahman, told New Age on Monday, ‘The arrested admitted their involvement in the incident, but they argued that they had not stolen such large quantities of rail clips and that many actually went missing from the scene.’
   ‘Earlier, we conducted a raid on a place where they sold the rail clips. But, they had managed to conceal the clips before we reached the spot. According to the confessions of the newly-arrested people, this time we have recovered 160 stolen rail clips,’ Mahbub added.

Power supply from the country’s first ever wind energy project at Kutubdia in Cox’s Bazar started on an experimental basis on Monday.
   A total of 245 consumers got the power supply while about 1000 families of the island upazila will get the power supply after the formal inauguration of the project.
   The government is supplying power to Kutubdia with a fuel generator, burning at least 100 litres of fuel every day.
   The Bangladesh Power Development Board took up a project for generating power from wind energy with a coast of Tk 9.50 crore in 2004.
   The Pan Asia power Services Limited was appointed for the installation of the 1,000-kilowatt wind energy project.
   They have already installed 50 turbines at village Tabalerchar of Ali Akbardail union very near the Bay of Bengal. Each of the turbines can generate 20kw power every day.
   Mohammad Fazlur Rahman, wind energy specialist of Pan Asia Power Services Limited, told New Age, ‘India generates 7,700 megawatt power every day from wind energy project.
   India also has taken programme for generating
   20 thousand megawatts
   power from wind energy by 2020.’
   ‘Germany, Holland, Canada and others developed countries are generating hundreds and thousands of megawatts of power from wind energy every day for national consumption. But we are still lagging behind in this regard.’
   ‘Kutubdia 1000-kilowatt wind energy project is a successful project. We have already been able to supply power to subscribers of the island from the project,’ he added.
   Abduho Roholla, superintendent engineer of PDB and project director of the Kutubdia wind energy project experimentally inaugurated the supply.
   Sahadat Hossain, executive engineer, Cox’s Bazar PDB, was also present, among others, on the occasion.
   ‘A total of 245 subscribers are getting power supply from the wind energy project,’ Sahadat added, saying ‘At least 1,000 subscribers will be get supply from the project after completion of the project. It will be completed in mid-April.’
   Special assistant of chief adviser of the government is expected to inaugurate the project, PDB sources said.

Bangladesh Monday pressed for early settlements of the maritime disputes with Myanmar as officials of the two neighbouring countries started a two-day talk in Dhaka over demarcation in the Bay of Bengal.
   Additional foreign secretary of Bangladesh MAK Mahmood and Commodore Muang Oo Lwin of Myanmar led their sides in the follow-up talks of the technical committee.
   Bangladesh officials said that they would submit necessary data in support of their claim over the sea and push for resolving the disputes.
   Response from the Yangon side was positive, a foreign ministry official said, hoping to reach a decision today paving the way for a final settlement.
   Dhaka opted to resume negotiations with Yangon as the delay in settling the demarcation disputes allowed India and Myanmar to creep into the Bangladesh waters.
   An official said the recent developments in bilateral ties with Myanmar had made it easier to put forward the issue for discussion.
   Bangladesh is preparing for gas exploration in the Bay but demarcation disputes led to delay in inviting tenders, officials said.

The Anti-Corruption Commission in a letter has urged the Cabinet Division to take an immediate initiative so that every department should have a permanent mechanism to deal with the wealth statements submitted by government officers and employees.
   ‘As per the commission’s proposal, the ministry of establishment has sought wealth statements from government officers and employees and accordingly they have submitted their statements to their respective departments,’ the ACC director general (admin), Col Hanif Iqbal, told commission’s regular briefing on Monday.
   He said the commission thinks if the submitted wealth statements are scrutinised by respective departments, there would be a clear idea about corrupt officers and employees. ‘Punishment and disciplinary actions afterwards will help reduce the area of corruption,’ he added.
   Hanif said, ‘In this context, the commission on Monday wrote (a letter) to the Cabinet Division secretary suggesting introduction of a permanent process, that means management, to scrutinise the wealth statements submitted by the government officers and employees.’
   The commission asked the Cabinet Division to do this effectively as soon as possible, he added.
   Replying to a question, the director general said the commission did not get involved with this. Every department would have its own management to scrutinise the statements, he added.
   Asked if the ACC would see how the departments are scrutinising the statements, he said the commission is yet to think about it.
   Hanif said the commission had approved the submission of charge sheet in the case against former Awami League MP Haji Selim and his wife Gulshan Ara Begum for acquiring wealth worth about Tk 27 crore, including concealment of wealth worth about Tk 10 crore.
   He said the commission has approved the filing of a case against Nazim Uddin, chairman of Suvaddya union parishad, Keraniganj, Dhaka for amassing wealth worth about Tk 13 crore beyond known sources of income, including concealment of information of assets worth Tk 4.54 crore.
   Hanif said the anti-graft body had approved the issuance of notice to Israfil Ali, a former supervisor (CBA leader) of Titas Gas Company Limited, directing him to submit his wealth statement.

Nearly 480 military and civil officers from 16 countries of the world will join peace support operation ‘Exercise Shantidoot-2’ beginning today under the framework of Global Peace Operations Initiative programme co-sponsored by the Bangladesh Army and the United States Pacific Command.
   In one of the packages, 360 military personnel from 11 countries will take part in the Field Training Exercise at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace Support Operation Training (BIPSOT) in Rajendrapur Cantonment from April 1 to 20, said a press release of the Inter-Services Public Relations department on Monday.
   In the other package of the exercise, 120 military and civil personnel from 16 countries including – Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Korea, UK, Mongolia, Tonga and the USA – are participating Command Post Exercise to be held at Hotel Radisson from April 1 to 11.
   Bangladesh is holding 25 key appointments including Exercise Director and the UN Force Headquarters Commander and Force Commander in the CPX. Brigadier Generals Md Rafiqul Islam and Brigadier General Mohammad Mahboob Haider Khan are the Exercise Director and Exercise Force Commander respectively.
   The CPX will have 3 segments including academic session, mini exercise and exercise play. Chief of naval staff, vice admiral Sarwar Jahan Nizam will give out the certificates to the participants of the CPX at Hotel Radission on April 11.

International telecommunications were disrupted for over eight hours, from 11:30pm Sunday to 7:45am Monday, due to a cut in the submarine cable optical fibre link in Comilla, BTTB said Monday.
   The cable was cut at Basantpur, some 23 kilometres from Feni, disrupting international telephone calls as well as internet connections.

British visa applicants, who give false information or submit fake documents, will face a ten-year ban on entry to the United Kingdom.
   The new law will come into effect from today (April 1), said a release of the British High Commission in Dhaka Monday.
   Under the changes to the UK’s immigration laws, which are being applied globally, applicants who have previously breached UK immigration laws by staying in the UK illegally or working without permission, will also be banned from coming to the UK.
   Jon Verney, head of immigration services at the British High Commission said, ‘Legitimate Bangladeshi applicants have nothing to fear from these changes and I feel confident that they will understand and share our desire to stamp out fraudulent applications.’
   He said, ‘Dealing more effectively with the minority of individuals who seek to cheat the system enables us quickly to identify and welcome legitimate travellers and offer a high quality, transparent and efficient service.’
   Across the world, Verney said, applicants for UK visas are required to provide digital photographs and electronic fingerprint scans as part of the application process.
   This identifies those individuals who have previously broken the rules in the UK or who have made an application under a different name.

The police are yet to arrest the prisoner who escaped from the Infectious Diseases Hospital at Mohakhali, Dhaka by breaking a window of its tetanus ward at third floor on February 14, jail and hospital authorities said.
   Nurses and doctors of the hospital said the prisoner named Siraj Mia of the Dhaka Central Jail was admitted to the hospital with tetanus on February 12.
   Siraj escaped from the hospital’s tetanus ward by breaking a window, although two wardens were on duty at the ward to watch over the prisoner, said an IDH physician.
   Dhaka Central Jail jailer Shafiqul Islam told New Age on Monday, ‘We have suspended the wardens, Mahbub and Delwar, for negligence in duty.’
   A deputy jailer, who is also on the committee investigating the case, said negligence of on-duty constable were mainly blamed for escape of prisoners, but another fact responsible for such incidents is the poor security arrangement on hospital premises.
   Siraj was arrested during a robbery at a Dhaka house in December 2007 with some injury in his leg, which later became infected with tetanus bacteria.
   He was first admitted to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and then shifted to the country’s lone infectious diseases referral hospital at Mohakhali.