On February 24, 2019, the construction of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Tunnel under the Karnaphuli River began, connecting the main city of Chittagong with the Anwara Upazila of Chittagong, which is the country’s commercial capital. This tunnel, built at a depth of 150 feet in the Karnaphuli River, is the first underground tunnel project in Bangladesh. The cost of implementing the project has been estimated at Tk 10,374 crore, of which Tk 4,461 crore is being financed by the Bangladesh government, and the remaining Tk 5,913 crore is being financed by China’s Exim Bank.

The main tunnel is four lanes and 3.4 km long, with two tubes with a length of 2.45 km and an inner diameter of about 11 (10.80) meters inside the tunnel. The total length of the entire project is 9.47 km, including 5.35 km of approach road at both ends of the tunnel, and 727 m of overbridges for entry through one end and exit through the other end of the tunnel. The Chinese company, China Communication and Construction Company Limited, and the Bangladesh Bridge Department have worked to implement the project. Meanwhile, the work on the southern part of the tunnel has been fully completed, and the work on the northern side is also nearing completion.

The tunnel is expected to be inaugurated in March 2023, as the work on the intersection roads at the Patenga and Anwara ends of the tunnel is not yet fully completed. Once operational, the tunnel is expected to carry over 28,000 (28,305) vehicles daily by 2025, rising to around 38,000 (37,946) by 2030. The project will reduce the distance of Cox’s Bazar district from Chittagong by 40 km and the distance from Dhaka to Cox’s Bazar by at least 50 km, which will help reduce costs by reducing the time and fuel consumption of transporting goods and passengers. The tunnel will essentially help transform Chittagong into a ‘one city, two towns’ model, modeled after Shanghai in China. By doing this, it is expected to accelerate the country’s export trade by increasing production-oriented activities in Chittagong and Anwara through industrial development.