After Mongla Port the Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority (BEZA) is about to acquire land in Srihatta of Moulavibazar at public private partnership fund for developing Srihatta economic zone, officials said. To acquire 293 acres of land BEZA sought Tk 292 crore from the government owned Bangladesh Infrastructure Finance Fund Limited (BIFFL). A senior official in the economic zone (EZ) office said the government has already allocated more than Tk 300 crore for the Srihatta project and they are going to start acquisition by October next. The official said that appointing a local private party for developing the Mongla Economic Zone was the first successful case by BEZA since start of its operation and for the second time they are going to own 352 acres of land in Srihatta zone. Out of the total proposed land, 112.25 acres of fallow (khas) land have already been leased out from the government and the rest, 239.87 acres, would be purchased from the local people. Hariprasad Paul, additional secretary and general manager of the BEZA said, “As per the Moulvibazar district deputy commissioner estimation they have sought Tk 290 crore for purchasing lands for acquisition for the economic zone project.” He said that the BIFFL a company under the government’s ministry of finance, have already approved Tk 360 crore for the Moulvibazar Shrihatta project at 6.0 per cent interest rate. He also said that BEZA authority has renamed the Moulvibazar project as Srihatta (old version of Sylhet) economic zone. Under the project after acquisition of the lands the authority would then invite private party for its development and investments from local and foreign companies. The official said in Mongla project the BEZA authority, with Tk 600 million WB fund, is constructing approach road, bridges, boundary walls, electric substation, water supply system, administrative building and some other off site developmental works. Since formation of the authority it has selected different places across the country for developing EZs but for the first time they owned land in Mongla in 2014 with financial assistance from the ministry of finance.
