Background report, originally published by UNB on 23 March 2025. It records an official assessment that still frames the debate over Payra’s dredging costs.
Then Planning Adviser Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud called the Payra Sea Port project a “poisonous boil for the economy” while briefing reporters after an ECNEC meeting chaired by Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus. He said the port cannot operate without yearly dredging and that “theoretically this is a bad project”.
He said physical implementation was 72 per cent complete and financial implementation above 50 per cent, and that two dredgers had been bought to dredge the long channel year-round. ECNEC asked him to visit the port and find the best solution. He said the project could be stopped, but the coal-based power plant it serves could not be shut down.
Payra was established by an Act of Parliament in 2013 and inaugurated in 2016 at Kalapara, Patuakhali.
Source
- UNB: “Payra port ‘nothing but a poisonous boil’ for economy: Adviser Wahiduddin” (23 March 2025)
File photo: the signing of Payra port’s dredging contract with Jan De Nul. Photo: Press Information Department / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This article is a summary prepared by Maritime News BD from the report(s) listed above; it was not independently reported by Maritime News BD.
