Rejaul Karim Byron

The government yesterday approved the construction of three metro rail lines for Dhaka at an estimated cost of nearly Tk 2.5 lakh crore.

The estimated cost of the direct dual-gauge railway line project connecting Bogura and Sirajganj has jumped nearly 89 percent to Tk 10,391 crore, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) set to fund 71 percent of the total project costs.

The revised estimated cost of the Japan-funded Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line-1 and Line-5 projects has been set at Tk 2,03,800 crore, down 4.75 percent from an earlier proposal.

The government is set to introduce electric trains for the first time in Bangladesh on the 52km Narayanganj-Dhaka-Joydebpur route.

When war in the Middle East sent fuel prices climbing, Bangladesh looked like an obvious casualty. An import-dependent economy with a thin reserve cushion and a recent history of dollar shortages had every reason to buckle. It has not.

After approving a long-term deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a US-based firm, the government yesterday decided to import at least 18 LNG cargoes from France’s TotalEnergies over the next nine months under a direct purchase arrangement.

The MRT-5 southern route is finally getting a move on, with the project set to be placed before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) next week for approval.

Sharmin Begum, who lives in Barguna’s Patharghata upazila, may have done little to contribute to global warming, but she is suffering severely from its adverse impacts.