Bangladesh

Bangladesh scraps Dhaka-Gazipur BRT project after 14 years, will build six-lane highway

The cabinet approved removing stations and lane dividers on the 20.5km airport-Gazipur corridor, where about Tk 2,811 crore has been spent and no BRT bus ever ran.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 20 Oct 2026, 16:25

File photo: a BRT station on the Dhaka-Gazipur corridor under construction. The government has decided to remove the stations and turn the corridor into a six-lane highway. Mehediabedin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Bangladesh has decided to abandon its first bus rapid transit project, 14 years after work began, and turn the corridor between Dhaka airport and Gazipur into an ordinary six-lane highway.

The cabinet took the decision at its meeting on Sunday, 18 October, and the road transport and highways division issued instructions to its offices the next day. An order signed by Deputy Secretary Taslima Ahmed Poly says BRT stations, lane dividers and other infrastructure will be removed to create a 3+3-lane road, and the two existing two-lane overpasses will be widened to four lanes.

The government will also shut down Dhaka Bus Rapid Transit PLC, the company set up to run the service, and move its work to the Roads and Highways Department. Officials have been told to resolve legal complications with the project's development partners before formally closing it.

The project was approved in November 2012 at an estimated cost of Tk 2,038 crore and was due to be finished by December 2016. The deadline was extended five times and the cost rose to Tk 4,286 crore. About Tk 2,811 crore, roughly 65 per cent of that amount, has already been spent, and physical progress had reached about 97 per cent.

No dedicated BRT bus ever carried a passenger. Tenders to buy buses failed twice, and the infrastructure stood unused while commuters on the airport-Gazipur road continued to face congestion.

A fourth revision that would have raised the cost to about Tk 6,597 crore and extended the deadline to December 2029 was rejected by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council in July 2025. The cabinet then chose the fourth of four options prepared with advice from a team at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, which recommended scrapping the project rather than completing it.

BUET professor Md Shamsul Hoq said the decision showed the government had used a detailed technical report to avoid repeating a costly mistake, but added that residents' concerns were legitimate and that commuter train services along the corridor should be strengthened.

The Gazipur Heritage and Development Organisation said the decision only partly reflects the experts' recommendations, and the Financial Express reported that many Gazipur residents oppose the move. The road transport and highways division has asked its offices for progress reports within 15 days and monthly updates until the work is done, but no deadline has been set for removing the structures.

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