Tk49.49cr third terminal immigration system project gets conditional nod

The government is planning to undertake a Tk49.49 crore project to modernise the immigration system at the third terminal of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka.

The project, proposed by the Special Branch (SB) of Bangladesh Police under the Ministry of Home Affairs, will install high-capacity servers, central storage, modern network infrastructure, firewalls, e-passport readers, and multimodal biometric identification systems.

It will also provide optical fibre connectivity and uninterrupted power supply to speed up immigration services and strengthen security.

The project is planned for implementation from July 2026 to June 2027 with full government funding. It was proposed in anticipation of increased international passenger traffic after the third terminal becomes operational, according to Bangladesh Police sources.

A Project Evaluation Committee (PEC) meeting at the Planning Commission on 6 September recommended conditional approval of the project. It asked the authorities to form an expert committee to verify market prices and assess the justification for nearly Tk47.78 crore earmarked for software and equipment, with the report to be attached to the Development Project Proposal (DPP).

The authorities were also asked to certify that none of the proposed items overlap with the airport expansion project.

The DPP said immigration operations currently face limitations due to inadequate server capacity and storage, slow networks and weak cybersecurity. These challenges are expected to intensify with increased passenger traffic after the new terminal opens.

The PEC also ordered changes to the procurement plan, including combining similar packages, reducing their number, adopting a single procurement method and clearly specifying the approving authority.

It also cut several proposed costs, including DPP printing from Tk2 lakh to Tk1 lakh, stationery from Tk3 lakh to Tk5,000 and newspaper advertising from Tk4 lakh to Tk2.95 lakh. Two budget items for project-office furniture and computers were dropped.

Sardar Nurul Amin, additional inspector general and head of the SB, told The Business Standard that the project would enable faster immigration processing through modern hardware and software and allow passenger information to be stored in a database.

The third terminal is expected to be inaugurated in December. Asked why the immigration project was proposed so late, Nurul Amin said the terminal is a much larger project, while the immigration project is relatively small.

"Once it is approved, we will complete its implementation by next November," he said.