Mega projects of Bangladesh

History manifests that mega projects may become landmarks for a country by bringing transformational impact on the lives of the long-deprived people. Mega projects are material drivers for accelerating the economic growth of developing countries, especially while in transition to development. Though Bangladesh's success story, The widely discussed projects are Padma Bridge and Rail Link, Metro Rail, Chattogram-Cox's Bazar Rail Link, Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, The Coal-Fired Power Plant of Matarbari and Rampal, and the Payra Sea Port. To materialise the vision-2041 of becoming a developed country, Bangladesh is giving big-push for timely implementation of its "flagship projects" since these are expected to raise the country's GDP by 4 per cent upon successful completion. The ongoing mega projects are intended to make the country exceptionally rewarding in terms of economic margin and safe investment by upgrading existing physical infrastructure and creating an exemplary business environment and acting as an economic development engine. For instance- the Padma bridge will connect 21 southern districts with the capital ensuring cheap and regular supply of raw materials needed for industrialization; the Matarbari port will boost cross-border trade through facilitating speedy port service and integrated connectivity. These "multi-billion- dollar projects" are duly weighted to generate sustainable returns from the land of Bangladesh. Government's effort to mobilize the investors and donors to ensure "hefty investment" for mega projects created a big financial space for hard infrastructure development. These signature projects, if properly managed, will successfully address Bangladesh's infrastructure deficiencies, transport crises, and power shortages in a sustainable manner. But the "iron law of mega projects -- over budget, over time, over and over again" created the "mega projects paradox" giving birth to two opposite schools of thought regarding their impact on the community. One school criticises mega projects questioning financial viability and complaining about cost overrun, environmental degradation, and overburdening external debt. While another school justifies mega projects stating that government usually conducts extensive "cost- benefit analysis" before taking up any giant project and cancels any project if it is not economically viable or environmentally sustainable e.g., scrapping the plan of Sonadia deep sea-port. Investing in mega projects to stimulate economic development has been one of the most popular policy instruments since the 1930's great depression. Even the "Sustainable Development Goals Framework" emphasized spending about $57 trillion on infrastructure by 2030 to ensure desired global GDP growth. Bangladesh envisaged implementing "large-infrastructure megaprojects", even before "Agenda 2030" was adopted, to make the country "investment hotspot" of South Asia. "East Asian Tigers", in their early days of development, invested heavily in "ground-breaking megaprojects" to deliver economic and social goods to the masses. To give momentum to the economy and change the course of national progress, Bangladesh is following in the footsteps of "The Asian Story of Grand Success"-- a miracle of economic transformation. Bangladesh may also take lessons from the Gyeongju Expressway of South Korea to generate optimum output from mega projects. Mega project promoters, while promoting their pet-projects, should be handled carefully since they may create a distorted hall-of- mirrors making the situation extremely perplexing to decide which projects deserve undertaking and which not. It is the best project that should be implemented, not the one that looks best on paper. These epoch- making initiatives of Bangladesh, taken to date so far, are just the beginning of a journey-- a journey that can shed more light on the path towards more prosperity.