The handover of the Bangabandhu National Stadium (BNS) to the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) by the National Sports Council (NSC) has been extended by another six months by planning commission on Tuesday.

The country's premier multi-purpose sports venue, which started undergoing renovation worth Tk 98.35 crore in September 2021, was initially supposed to be completed by December 2023. The deadline, however, was extended in two phases to December 2024 due to delay in approval of revised budget, which raised the cost by Tk 60 crore.

Former sports minister Nazmul Hassan Papon in early 2023 and later last year Youth and Sports Adviser Asif vowed to complete project within the timeline of December 2024.

"The planning commission yesterday [Tuesday] approved the extension of the project by six months. Hopefully, we can complete everything by this time unless any unavoidable circumstances arise," NSC's acting planning and development director Mahbub Morshed Sohel told The Daily Star yesterday.

Asked why they could not meet the deadline for a second time, Sohel said that there were various reasons behind it which they explained to the sports ministry and planning commission.

The NSC official also informed that they had a few meetings with the BFF officials, who want to host the Asian Cup Qualifiers match against Hong Kong [scheduled for October 9] at the BNS.

BFF general secretary Emran Hossain Tushar, however, said that they have requested NSC to hand over the ground, the dressing rooms and the media box by next month.

"We have sent a letter to the NSC today [Wednesday], requesting them to hand over the venue, dressing room and media centre by January as we are planning to stage matches of Bangladesh Championship League there since a new artificial turf is being installed at the Kamalapur venue," Emran said. "We also want international football to return to BNS through two international friendly matches of the women's team in the latter part of February."

Emran also informed that they need a match commissioner's room at BNS for hosting international matches. The NSC officials told them that by February they would be able to install floodlights, the bulbs for which are expected to reach the venue within a few days.

"We have two major tasks left. One is installing shed on the western gallery and the other is floodlights. The media centre is almost ready while all chairs for the galleries and the VIP boxes have been procured already," Sohel said.