Chattagram drainage project deadline extended to 11 years amid planning failures

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A decade-long effort to mitigate chronic flooding in Chattogram faces another delay as the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) has requested a two-year extension, pushing the project’s completion deadline to June 2028. Initially approved in August 2017 as a three-year initiative with a budget of 5.61 billion taka, the project is now entering its 11th year, with total costs ballooning to 8.59 billion taka despite scaling back several infrastructure components.

According to documents reviewed, the initial phase of the project was marred by inadequate planning and a lack of comprehensive field surveys. Analysts and urban experts have long criticized the authority for failing to conduct proper water-flow analyses, tidal impact studies, and integrated assessments of the city’s drainage network before commencing construction. These oversights proved costly, stalling physical progress for the first two years and leading to recurring complications during implementation.

While the CDA claims the project is currently 98 percent complete, work on the Hijra and Jamal Khan canals remains unfinished. Project Director Ahmad Moinuddin attributed the latest extension primarily to funding structural adjustments rather than construction delays. Under the revised financial plan, nearly the entire budget of 8.59 billion taka will be sourced from government grants, with only a small fraction structured as a long-term loan. The government’s decision to disburse funds in phases over two years has necessitated the extended timeline for the project’s formal closure.

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To offset rising costs in critical areas—such as deep-dredging of canals, reinforced concrete drainage infrastructure, and bridge construction—the CDA has trimmed spending on secondary elements, including silt traps, footpaths, and bituminous road surfacing. These austerity measures aim to save approximately 488 million taka, balancing out cost overruns in other essential technical sectors.

Despite nearly 10.4 billion taka being spent across four separate flood-control initiatives over the past eight years, the city continues to suffer from severe waterlogging, most recently exemplified by significant flooding on April 28. Independent engineers, including former chairmen of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB) in Chattogram, contend that the project was fundamentally flawed from its inception. They argue that the CDA lacked a realistic grasp of the city’s complex topography, and the ongoing revisions are merely a reactive response to structural failures caused by the initial, hasty planning process.