Bangabandhu Shilpa Nagar to be int’l standard smart city

Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) is working to build the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar (BSMSN) as an international standard green smart industrial city so that the investors can run their production activities by maintaining the balance of environment. To this end, the ‘BSMSN Development Project’ is being implemented with an overall estimated cost of Taka 4,347.21 crore under the financial support of the World Bank, BEZA Executive Chairman Shaikh Yusuf Harun told BSS.

He said BSMSN, an upcoming smart industrial city, is shaping the future of Bangladesh by attracting huge amount of local and foreign investments. To transform BSMSN into a self-contained smart industrial city, he said, BEZA has developed a comprehensive master plan to build a ‘Smart City’, incorporating seaport, rail and road connectivity, power plant, marine drive and social infrastructures like residential areas, tourism park, hospital, school and university. The primary goal of the master plan is to ensure that critical infrastructure is economically sustainable and public services are interactive, transparent and responsive, he added. The BEZA chief said the government is implementing the project to turn this BSMSN as a green economic zone as well as creating new employment opportunities through attracting necessary investment. The project also aims to attract local and foreign investments, ensuring speedy industrialization as well as product diversification, boosting export earnings and thus creating scopes for earning valuable foreign currency, he added.

He said BEZA will implement this project by December 2025, in order to create an enabling environment for sustainable private investment and a dynamic local market for industrial land. Shaikh Yusuf Harun said this huge project is being implemented at Mirsharai where foreign companies from countries like China, Japan and South Korea have already shown their interest to invest. He informed that the project mainly aims to ensure infrastructural development of various zones including Zone 2A and Zone 2B of BSMSN and thus creating private investment friendly environment there. Besides, once the project is implemented, there will be huge employment opportunities, including for women, which will also play a supporting role in further alleviating poverty. Under the project, he informed, BEZA is going to construct a 30-kilometre road inside the BSMSN alongside other necessary infrastructures such as a central effluent treatment plant, desalination plant, solar energy systems, solid waste management, biogas plant, waste sorting facility, rooftop and floating solar.

Besides, there will be necessary land development, necessary site upgradating, constriction of one investor club and one stop service (OSS) center, one emergency response center, one skills development center, sanitation and water supply network along with telecommunications network, power network, gas pipeline network, environmental lab and monitoring system. The BEZA chief informed that the works of road construction and drainage system will be started soon as all necessary process are about to end and BEZA will go for tender soon. The BSMSN is taking shape day by day as investors have started developing the physical infrastructure of the economic zone.

(AA)