The revised costing of the project, conceived at fiscal year 1997-98, was Tk 317 crore, which is Tk 125 crore higher than the initial estimation of Tk 192 crore. Of the extra expenditures sought, Tk 110 crore was to cover land acquisition and landfilling.

The 61-km road starts from Joydebpur and runs via Devagram, Bhulta, and Nawabpur Bazar through Narsingdi and Pragati Sarani of the capital to end at Dhaka-Chittagong Highway in Madanpur of Narayanganj district.

At yesterday's meeting chaired by Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman, a planning ministry report said the expenditure shown for land acquisition and land filling is unacceptably high.

Emerging from the meeting at the NEC auditorium Saifur told reporters, "The revised budged shown for the project is too high. We think it is possible to complete the project with Tk 250 to 260 crore."

He directed the Planning Commission and the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) to make spot inspection and verify the reason and validity of the high expenditure, and submit their study reports in the next Ecnec meeting.

The project that includes new roads and road sections, link-roads and culverts is scheduled to complete by FY 2005-06 and aims at easing the capital's traffic congestion.

The meeting approved 15 other development projects with a total outlay of Tk 2,530 crore including Tk 1,255 crore in project aid.

The okayed projects include Road Network Development and Maintenance Project II under the ministries of communications and women and children affairs; construction of a PC girdle bridge and a bailey bridge over a canal including an access road over the Poysha river in Agoiljhara under the communications ministry; Patuakhali bridge (amendment), Gorai bridge over the Gorai river on Kushtia-Rajbari road, bridge over Dakatia river in Chandpur (amendment) and Bhairab bridge projects (2nd amendment).

The meeting also took decision on Kurigram Flood Control and Irrigation Project under Water resources ministry: North unit (1st phase: flood control and sanitation portion) -- 2nd amendment and loss caused by floods in 1998 and miscellaneous rehabilitation work on Teesta Barrage Project (1st level amendment).

It also adopted decision on long-term excavation programme for maintaining navigability of internal river routes under the shipping ministry and collection of ancillary machinery including three dredgers and one booster pump (2nd amendment), integrated soil fertility and fertiliser management-2nd phase (amendment), and soil research centre establishment project (amendment) under the agriculture ministry.

Besides, decision was taken on CNG project for preventing environment pollution (amendment) under Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and construction of building for new court of Chittagong (amendment) under Employment Ministry, general auditorium of Officer's Club of Dhaka under Housing and Public Works Ministry (amendment) and development of seismo-logical services under Defence Ministry.