The government yesterday decided to include one more mega project in the list of fast track projects, which are directly supervised by the prime minister for faster implementation.

The project, Khan Jahan Ali Airport Construction Project, will be constructed at Foyla under Rampal upazila of Bagerhat beside the Khulna-Mongla highway.

An inter-ministerial meeting headed by Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon at his ministry's conference room took the decision.

The airport will be built on 536 acres of land costing Tk 544.75 crore, Mahbubur Rahman Tuhin, public relation officer of the ministry, told The Daily Star after the meeting.

Tk 490 crore will be received from the government fund and the rest will be provided by the Civil Aviation Authority. Ecnec has already approved the project, to be implemented by 2019.

This airport will open a new horizon of economical development and industrialisation in the south-western region and also boost tourism, the meeting observed.

The government has given a top priority to eight fast-track mega projects in the newly proposed budget, setting aside Tk 18,727 crore.

They are Padma Bridge, metro rail, Rooppur nuclear power plant, Rampal power plant, Payra sea port, Matarbari power plant, Padma bridge rail link and Dohazari-Cox's Bazar-Gundum rail line.

The government is planning to implement two other fast-track projects -- Sonadia deep sea port and LNG terminal -- on government-to-government (G2G) basis.

Three more will be included in the mega project list; they are Matarbari coal terminal, Bhola gas pipeline, and petrochemical industry in coastal area.